Vizag suffers unprecedented losses due to Seemandhra agitations

The 60-day long Seemandhra agitation has severely affected industrial production and several businesses in Visakhapatnam.

Collectively, the Visakhapatnam district could have incurred a loss of over Rs 5,000 crore during this period in industrial production, said G Sambasiva Rao, chairman, CII, Vizag chapter. Production losses across large and SME units had been 25 per cent to 50 per cent. In Auto Nagar, production was down 40-50 per cent. Against this, losses could be more than Rs 1,000 crore, added Rao.

IT sector costs rise
Large IT companies-Tech Mahindra, Wipro, HSBC and IBM- saw a 25 per cent rise in maintenance costs owing to power cuts and expenses towards employee transport facilities.

The monthly business transaction of various IT companies in Vizag stands at more than Rs 250 crore (including exports and imports). However, due to the uncertainty, around 20 per cent business got affected, said Deepak S Madala, president, Vizag Information Technology Association.

Madala said the agitations had hit the clients' (foreign) confidence due to delays in scheduled projects.

Vizag port
Operations at the port took a hit due to problems in smooth movement of cargo by trucks and power shutdown, said Krishna Kumar, president, Visakhapatnam Stevedores Association.

Real estate loses Rs 400 cr
The city has lost around Rs 400 crore due to a drop in property registrations. Visakhapatnam, which usually sees 500-600 units being sold every month in the category of Rs 40 lakh, has seen drop in demand.

Banks sanctions take a hit
As against an average normal period sanction of Rs 8-10 crore every month, around 200 branches operating in the city were not disbursing loans sanctioned to customers, said a senior officer of Andhra Bank.

Hotel and Restaurant
Hotel and restaurant business fell by more than 35 per cent in Vizag city, said S A Rehman, vice president, Andhra Pradesh Hotel Merchants Association. The Daspalla Group of Hotels was losing Rs 2 lakh business a day. Likewise, all city hotels and restaurants have been losing around Rs 2 crore business every day, for the last 60 days, said M Raghavendra Rao, managing director, Daspalla Group.  

Bullion business drops 80%
Gold sales dipped 80 per cent and the turnover loss stood at Rs 20 crore a day. If the situation continues, traders would have to stop operations, said Mahendra Jain, managing director, Hira Panna Jewellers.

Monthly car sales drop 43%
While August witnessed 350 four-wheeler sales, September sales fell to 200 in Vizag, said a Maruti dealer. This was due to the RTA department staff strike and unavailability of loans from banks.