The small and medium units Haryana are getting smaller due to dwindling volume of business. With the buoyancy in the domestic economy and economies world over, there has been a plethora of orders for various clusters located in the state. However, the paucity of power supply has curtailed their operations.
The agriculture implements manufacturers’ cluster of Karnal, one of the largest in India, is the worst hit as the post harvest season generates the largest demand for agricultural implements. According to Ashok Rajpal of Agri Impex and Rajpal Agri Machinery in Karnal, the farmers get their income in the harvest season and spend it on buying agricultural equipment. “If we are not able to cater to their demand coinciding with their income period they spend the money to meet other expenses. Later, when we are ready with supplies, our buyers are left with little money and we lose on sales,” he says.
The Karnal outfits are engaged in manufacturing pre- sowing implements like harrows, cultivators and rotary tillers and this part of the year is most crucial for their sales.
Rajpal is largely into exports of agricultural implements and the resurgence in the global economies has created room for higher exports. “There has been a glut of orders but power shortage is a major bottleneck in meeting export commitments.”
Ravi Bery of Bery Udyog in Karnal says,“The greater use of diesel-run captive power adds to the cost and makes the business proposition unviable.”
“The captive power costs about Rs 12-13 per unit as compared to power tariff of Rs 5 per unit charged by the power utilities,” he said.
Power is available for only six to seven hours a day and that too is erratic.
The tractor ancillaries located in Panchkula also lamented power cuts that have gone from bad to worse.
Former president of Haryana Chamber of Commerce and Industry C B Goyal said that unstable power has increased their fixed costs also. “I need to send two to three motors everyday for repair as the low voltage coupled with high current damages the machines,” he added.
According to Goyal, they got the high tension supply of 11,000 volt in the industrial area of Panchkula. The area charged about Rs 2 per unit to convert this high tension to medium tension.
Most of the entrepreneurs, when contacted, said they had been incurring expenditure measuring six to seven per cent of the total cost on power. Ideally, it should be between two and three per cent, he added.
Facing acute power shortage, entrepreneurs in Gurgaon had a communication with state power minister Mahender Pratap Singh. President of Chamber of Industries of Udyog Vihar, Raj Singla said the industry has been getting power supply only for three hours against the scheduled eight hours.
Supply is being disrupted either due to frequency drop or load-shedding due to all substation transformers being overloaded. Smaller entrepreneurs are suffering heavily as the only transformer that they can afford is either broken down, requiring repairs or its production levels have been curtailed.
The situation in the clusters of Yamunagar, Ambala and Panipat is also similar.
Taking cognisance of higher power requirement for the upcoming kharif season in Haryana, the small and medium industry owners foresee longer cuts, making their outfits unviable.
