Hello darkness

Hello darkness: "From this evening, Mumbai’s iconic billboards will blink out. A symbol of an unprecedented power crisis across the state in a time of unprecedented growth. But the state govt is too busy with morality lectures to bother about a loss of Rs 100 crore — every day

From Sunday evening, the lights illuminating Mumbai’s dazzling skyline of billboards will not come on, a symbolic—and pointless—announcement that pampered Mumbai, with its 24-hour electricity, feels the pain and anger of an unprecedented power crisis in India’s industrial heartland of Maharashtra.

The billboards consume no more power than 1,700 suburban flats. Their darkness—on the day Maharashtra celebrates its creation and Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh ponders the politics of bar dancers and cabinet expansion— means nothing to Pradeep Bhargava, Managing Director of the Indian operations of Newage AVK SEG.

This British-German generator and electrical systems company hopes to make its plant in Aurangabad, 450 km northeast of Mumbai, its largest worldwide by 2007.

Maharashtra’s 4,000 mega watt (MW) power shortage—or a 25 per cent shortfall —has ruined Bhargava’s work schedules. He’s looking outside the state for vendors because five-hour daily blackouts have crippled his 50 subcontractors, who just can’t deliver their components on time.

Across India’s premier industrial state, 2005 was to be the year of great economic opportunity. With the local economy booming and global trade barriers falling, textiles, auto components and a host of small and large industries have grand plans to expand—and take the fight to China.

Instead, estimates cobbled together from various industry organisations and cities by The Sunday Express add upto a daily industrial loss of Rs 100 crore a day, or Rs 3,000 crore a month.

In the manufacturing belts around Pune—sheltering thousands of units making everything from switches to gearshafts for automobile giants around the world—and in textile towns that serve as the backroom for the biggest multinational clothing chains, all talk veers from skyrocketing demand to the three to 12 hours of blackouts, lost production, idle workers and rising costs.

The big companies aren’t directly affected: after suffering erratic power for two decades, most now either generate their own electricity or get largely stable power from the electricity board because it’s sustained by big industry’s bills.

‘‘If we have to play the volumes game globally, it’s imperative to ensure smaller players can deliver on time and quality,’’ said Baba Kalyani, CMD of Bharat Forge, at Rs 333 crore, India’s biggest auto components exporter.

Since jingoistic politics shuttered the multinational Enron plant in 2001, the year it was set to cross 2,000 MW, there was never any serious attempt by successive state governments to prepare for economic growth.

The disruption in areas not powered by industrial power lines is now so routine that entire units are moving closer to their protected power supply. Bajaj Auto is encouraging its vendors to do just that, as is Korean giant LG.

‘‘We have in-house generating capacity and 25-30 vendors have set up shop inside so they don’t lose out on delivery schedules because of power,’’ said Sachin Saxena, LG’s general manager.

None of that is possible for P S R Pillai, owner of SVR Enterprises, a Rs 92-lakh unit that is typical of thousands that serve as a backroom to the manufacturing backrooms. Pillai used to supply 6,000 rubber components in 25 working days to Kinetic and defence factories. Blackouts cut that figure by half last month.

‘‘Once power is restored, it takes machines almost two hours to attain working temperature, which means losing six productive hours,’’ said Pillai. ‘‘Workers sit idle through most of the 7:30 am to 3:30 pm shift. I can’t reduce their pay, can I?’’

To the south in Solapur with about 12,000 units specialising in terry towels—bound for the Gulf, UK, Australia and UK—stricken owners and lakhs of desperate workers fear the hour when the clatter of looms falls silent. Production is down by a fifth and Sudarshan Kurapati will tell you how his South African clients are slapping penalties because of blackout-induced production delays. ‘‘I paid a Rs 7 lakh penalty recently,’’ complained Kurapati. ‘‘Now I’m spending more trying to move my consignments from sea to air to meet new deadlines.’’

For smaller weavers in teeming, hardscrabble towns like Bhiwandi on Mumbai’s doorsteps, the power crunch is simply a situation gone from bad to desperate: from three hours two months ago the power cuts have soared to eight hours. "