The heavy rain that battered Chennai on Wednesday and Thursday took a hevy toll on MSMEs with industrial estates, which house thousands of small units, flooded, forcing them to shut their operations. Losses could run into a few hundred crores, say industry bodies.

Industrial estates at Ekkaduthangal, Ambattur, Kakkalur and Thirumazhisai, among others, were affected by the severe inundation as the low-pressure system brought on incessant rain.

Worst-affected hub

The Kakkalur Industrial Estate (KIE) at Thiruvallur, one of the oldest industrial estates in the State, is the worst-affected. “The whole area is completely flooded. No unit was able to operate on Thursday. This is the situation we face every year during heavy rain. Though this estate has very good connectivity, there has not been any improvement in infrastructure — roads, water drains, garbage collection. It is lagging others in infra and other basic amenities,” K Baskaran, Secretary, Kakkalur Industrial Estate Manufacturers Association (KIEMA), told BusinessLine .

KIE houses about 520 MSMEs, of which, only 250 are operational now. The Association has been making requests to successive governments to solve infra-related issues. But nothing has happened so far.

Though Ambattur and Guindy Industrial Estates managed to get some releif in the form of storm water drains, the Kakkalur Estate has not got any support.

“At Ekkaduthangal, the entire industrial area was flooded and no unit was able to open. All units shut their operations due to the heavy rain,” said V Nithiyanantham, General Secretary of TANSTIA. In the Ambattur Industrial Estate, 99 per cent of the 2,000 MSMEs remained closed; only a few large players could operate.

Lack of transport

Another key reason for the closure of units is the Electricity Board cutting off supplies as a safety measure. The inundation and roads cut off by uprooted trees made transport impossible. Power and transport will resume once water recedes and trees are removed, said a member of AIEMA (Ambattur Industrial Estate Manufacturers’ Association).

“Some of us had no choice but run on generators since we have export commitments. Though it is a little early, we estimate the loss due to production stoppage today in excess ₹100 crore if you take both the north and south phases of the industrial estate,” he added.

The exceptions to this disruption were the two key industrial corridors — at Oragadam and Sriperumbudur — that were not significantly affected. But here the major challenge was staff turnout as a large number of employees had to abstain from work due to the lack of transport.

(With inputs from

V Narayanan)

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