Medium and small-scale enterprises (MSMEs), which cannot afford back-up facilities, were the worst hit by the power failure in the Northern and Eastern States on Tuesday.

Large enterprises, however, were largely unaffected.

“MSMEs are considered the backbone of industrial growth in Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh and they take the maximum hit in case of energy shock, although it is difficult to quantify the hit at this juncture. Large enterprises are generally not affected much,” Dr S.P Sharma, Chief Economist, PHD Research Bureau, said.

Big car-makers such as Honda Siel, which operates a car plant with 1.2 lakh annual capacity at Greater Noida, said power outages were common in the region.

“We have our own captive power, both CNG-based gensets and diesel generators. Whenever the 4-MW Government power lines fail, we switch to the diesel sets, but it is double the cost,” said Mr Praveen Paranjape, Vice-President for Manufacturing, Honda Siel.

A Tata Motors spokesperson also said that a two-day power outage does not impact production much as it can be made up over the week. Tata Motors has a plant in Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, which primarily makes the Tata Ace LCV.

Auto component maker Anand Group also said that no major impact on production was expected.

The Delhi-based, NIIT Technologies, which has operations in Noida and Gurgaon, also reported minimal damage.

“We have 24X7 power back-up at all the locations through generators. If a generator gets heated, we have another one as back-up. We can continue like that for a week in all our centres. However, that costs Rs 7 lakh a day for us (in Delhi-NCR),” said Mr Piyush Srivastava, Head-Commercials and Senior Vice President, NIIT Technologies.

> heena.k@thehindu.co.in

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