As India's COVID cases spike, several states have imposed fresh restrictions. A recent addition to the list is Tamil Nadu. The state government has announced a complete lockdown for 2 weeks starting today, May 10. All private offices and shops, except for provision and grocery will remain closed.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, S Chandrakumar, chairman of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Tamil Nadu and chairman of Kauvery Group of Hospitals and TT Jagannathan, chairman of TTK Prestige discussed at length about the lockdown and its impact on the business.

First up, Jagannathan said, “We have not seen any reduction in demand though because of lockdown we are not able to supply. However, 50 percent of our manufacturing is in Tamil Nadu which is not shut but it is unlikely to be shut for more than 2 weeks. So we do not see a large impact on that.”

Meanwhile, Chandrakumar said, “Yesterday, May 9, we had a meeting with the chief minister, group of ministers and the government secretaries with the industry body. A lot of clarifications happened and in addition to essential services, export-oriented units have given the freedom and also the e-commerce particularly essential services have also been given the freedom and industries where maintenance of machines is required and where they need to manage the server units they have been given the permission with minimum transport of people.”

For the entire discussion, watch the video

(Edited by : Abhishek Jha)

First Published:May 10, 2021 11:43 AM IST