Cyclone Nivar: Auto plants in Chennai shut as govt declares holiday

Mumbai | Chennai: Cyclone Nivar has forced several automakers to shut their factories in and around the Chennai automotive belt, at a time when they are busy meeting spill over demand from the festive period.

Royal Enfield, Yamaha, Renault-Nissan, Ashok Leyland and Daimler shut their plants on Wednesday after the Tamil Nadu government declared a public holiday.

Ford was operational as the holiday was optional for industries, while Hyundai Motor’s plant was open half the day. A Hyundai executive said the company was assessing the situation and would take a call later on whether or not to operate the unit on Thursday.

The state government has extended the public holiday for one more day, with the cyclone, packing winds of up to 120-130 km per hour and heavy rains, expected to make landfall between late Wednesday evening and Thursday morning.

The state capital as well as the districts of Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur and Chengalpet have been getting heavy rains since Tuesday morning. The government’s efforts are aimed at preventing a repeat of the 2015 deluge, which had crippled the state capital for several days.

A longer disruption to production could throw a spanner into the works of the automotive industry, which has been struggling to restore supply chains from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, and meet a sudden surge in demand for personal vehicles.

RG Chakrapani, secretary of Thirumazhisai Industrial Estate that houses around 275 auto and auto component manufacturing units, is worried about the situation.

"We are keeping our fingers crossed and praying. If it continues to rain like this and there is about 15-20 cm of rainfall, companies will have a difficult time,” he said. “Effective storm water drainage has not been planned for this estate … even half an hour of heavy rains means the water enters all our factories.”

However, at the Ambattur Industrial Estate on the outskirts of the Chennai city, which houses about 2,000 tiny, small and medium scale units, things were better managed.

“The real impact is yet to be felt as the cyclone has not passed yet. The anticipatory measures have been extraordinary this time but if the Ambattur lake starts overflowing, it can lead to flooding,” its manufacturers' association president M Balachandran said.

Royal Enfield was sitting on an order backlog of over 80,000 units — more than a months' production — at the end of the festive period.

The country's second-largest carmaker, Hyundai too could take a hit if suppliers get impacted. Dealers said they were behind schedule on deliveries of Hyundai cars and couldn't fulfil many orders during Diwali, as they ran out of stock, especially for models like the Venue and Creta.