Power Cut Demonstration
Members of the Coimbatore Sidco Industrial Estate Manufacturers Welfare Association and Small Scale Industries Entrepreneur Association stage a demonstration in the city on Wednesday in protest against power cut in the State.Members of the Small Industries Entrepreneurs Association (SIEA) and the Coimbatore SIDCO Industrial Estate Manufacturers Welfare Association (COSSIEMA) on Wednesday downed shutters of their industrial units and took out a march in protest against the decision.More than 1,500 members led by S.P. Rangarajan began the march from SIDCO Industrial Estate and reached the Collectorate. The march was flagged off by R. Narayanasamy, COSSIEMA president and KGK Krishnamoorthy, former COSSIEMA president. Later, they presented a memorandum to the Collector, a release from the associations said. The memorandum said that many entrepreneurs had struggled to come up after starting own units. During the last nine months, the industries were facing a lot of hardships because of the power cut extending to four to six hours.
This had resulted in more than 5,000 small industries incurring a loss of over Rs. 4 crores. At this point of time, imposition of power cut for a whole day will worsen the situation. The associations expressed dismay at the State Government’s practice of providing “red carpet” welcome to multi national companies and foreign companies with uninterrupted power supply and that too at lowest tariff while discarding local industries. The trend, if continued, would result in more than 50,000 people losing employment.
