Madras Week | An old city and resilient industry – The Hindu

Wherever we go, there it is. The COVID-19 pandemic has overwritten several scripts, laid to waste the plans of all. And this year, as the city celebrates Madras Day, in commemoration of a pact inked 382 years ago, it makes sense to anchor the overarching theme to the disruptions a pandemic causes. For a week, these columns will open a window to the past to examine aspects of the city that are in some way connected to such disruptions. While Madras Day events are low key and the usual pomp and frenetic activity that Chennaiites see during this week in August are missing, people have taken the online route, as with most things these past couple of years. For Chennai is still a city that its residents love, and harking back to its connect with good ol’ Madras is an annual ritual that has come to stay

While nearly all sectors have taken a hit due to restrictions imposed on account of the pandemic, when businesses are impacted the minuses last a long time. The ability of industry in Madras to bounce back has been tested frequently in the past and as is inevitable, some business houses have given way to others but several have been resilient enough to survive the crises.

From Madras to Chennai, business houses have seen two pandemics along with several natural disasters, including floods and cyclones, all of which led to a dent in the balance sheets. While the century-old deadly Spanish Flu is too far back for recall as part of oral history, the floods that occurred in 1985 and 2015 have had a major impact on several business. Heads of various business houses and historians in the city said, “Many companies did not even exist then (referring to the flu). No one has any data or evidence to prove what businesses went through then.”

But a news report that appeared in The Hindu in 1919 has a line which mentioned that the economic effect through the disorganisation of trade cannot be estimated but must have been high.

Since the 1940s, Madras saw three major floods — 1943, 1976 and 1985 — but for businesses, the 1985 flood was the biggest dampener. During this period, industrial estates across Madras were flooded and roads leading to many estates were eroded. Association heads at the Ambattur Industrial Estate recalled that the northern and southern parts of the estate were flooded as the Ambattur lake started overflowing. Small scale units in the industrial estates suffered losses to the tune of over ₹16 crore. Data show that the Guindy Industrial Estate faced a loss of ₹5 crore, Ambattur lost around ₹8 crore, Instronic Campus lost ₹3 crore and Arumbakkam Industrial Area around ₹25 lakh.

According to a report in The Hindu, dated December 12, 1985, M.S. Parthasarathy, president, Small Industries and Business Entrepreneurs Association, said entrepreneurs had lost machinery and raw materials, besides the loss of mandays and production. At that time, V.S. Narasimhan, vice-president, Indian Council of Small Industries, urged the government to postpone the collection of sales tax and power dues from small scale units in the industrial areas.

“On the first day, I did not go to the factory but then I got a call saying water had seeped into the shop floor. The first thing we did was to shut down the electricity. Our people got buckets to get the water out,” recalled A. Sankaranarayanan, former MD of Hindustan Motors Ltd. Textile machinery, electrical equipment, raw materials and finished goods at the Buckingham and Carnatic Mills (B&C Mills) were completely damaged. Power supply tripped (the mill was consuming about 2 lakh units daily then) and flood water entered the mill premises, which was spread over 300 acres. The Hindu in its edition dated November 20, 1985, recorded that between November 10 and 13, all attempts to enter the mill were thwarted by the fast flow of water.

Industrialists said the then M.G. Ramachandran government took a slew of initiatives to help businesses following the 1985 flood. He asked the Industrial Development Bank Of India to come to the rescue of the affected tiny and small-scale industrial units. The bank readily accepted his suggestions and came out with a special scheme. The then Industries Minister K. Rajaram advised industrialists to take advantage of the bank’s offer. The State Bank of India also announced a package of relief measures, including postponement of the principal and interest payable by the affected small scale units till June 1986.

“Tamil Nadu always had a good administrative team that helped the city come back to normal relatively quickly. Our civic sense is quite high,” Venu Srinivasan, chairman, TVS Motor Company, said. He added, “I do not remember much of what happened in 1985 but the flood of 2015 was really bad as water entered into all factories and we took a lot of time to get back to normal.”

Many other industrialists said the flood in 2015 was among the costliest ones in terms of businesses. The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) in 2015, after the floods, said that the financial loss due to the record breaking rainfall in the city and several parts of Tamil Nadu may even exceed ₹15,000 crores as the city had come to a virtual standstill and was gripped by fear and panic. Small and medium enterprises, automobile and engineering industries, information technology (IT), ITeS, textile, tourism and a host of other sectors have been worst affected, it said

The crisis and pandemics have taught industries here how to adopt changes and move on with life. For instance, many organisations in Chennai now have a kitchen that can churn out several hundreds of food packets immediately if there is a crisis. They have even put in place systems to ensure that there is no flooding.

During the current pandemic, industries procured oxygen cylinders and safety kits to ensure that the employees are taken care of.

From the Archives: Nurses segregated due to illness

19 May, 1957

Four of the nurses, who went on board the quarantined ship, Rajula, that has arrived from Singapore, along with a medical team to give medical aid to the passengers, some of whom are suffering from Influenza, reported sick to-day.

It is stated that they developed temperature to-day, but it has not yet been established whether they had also caught the infection. A spokesman of the General Hospital said that they have been segregated in the hospital and are under observation.