Power-cuts cost India Inc over Rs43,000 crore in 2008-09: study

27 May 2009

An analysis of the impact of downtime in corporate India due to high occurrence of power outages, scheduled as well as non-scheduled, revealed that India Inc lost Rs43,205 crore in 2008-09. The amount of such direct losses has more than doubled since 2003 when these amounted to Rs22,000 crore, a study revealed. 

With significant companies relying on IT infrastructure for automation, productivity and business management, employee productivity and customer management were severely impacted by such downtime, according to a joint study by Manufacturers' Association for Information Technology (MAIT) and Emerson Network Power (India).

Among the various verticals studied, the manufacturing sector was the most adversely impacted, the study noted.

MAIT is the apex body representing the IT hardware industry in India and Emerson Network Power (India) is a global leader in business-critical continuity solutions.

The study, in its third round, to measure the impact of network downtime in the industrial sector, was conducted by consulting firm Feedback Business Consulting Services Pvt Ltd in January 2009. The study covered around 800 firms across seven industrial centres, namely, Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Pune. 

The study covered typical causes and solutions adopted, reactions to uptime etc across fourteen major industry verticals, including manufacturing, electronics, telecom, IT services, IT enabled services, banking and finance, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, SMEs, retail, hotels, real estate, infrastructure and hospitals.