Will repeated shutdown affect Brand Bengaluru?
Travelling in Turkey on a business tour, a Bengaluru–based industrialist is constantly on WhatsApp, seeking updates on the violence here. Anxious over missing deadlines for his export commitments as industries have remained closed for the past two days, his focus now is on getting his factories in Peenya running this weekend.
With Wednesday also likely to be a washout since curfew is in place in Peenya, exporters are increasingly worrying about the production losses, meeting export deadlines, and repayment of loans. A large number of medium and small industries in Peenya are vendors to global players.
In the last fortnight, four working days have been lost in the city. While violence has affected production over the past two days, trade and industry did not operate on September 9 on account of Karnataka bandh. Earlier, industries had closed for an all–India trade union strike on September 2. Internationally too, with an advisory from the U.S. Consulate General office in Chennai asking its citizens to avoid visiting the violence-affected areas, including Bengaluru, the city’s image is getting a beating, feel industrialists for whom production disruption is causing nightmares.
Manufacturing sector
Apart from the IT sector that has built Brand Bengaluru image globally, the city has its international links through exports from garments and manufacturing sectors.
Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry has pegged the production loss at Rs. 900 crore a day
The garment factory workers’ protest in April, which turned violent, also did not augur well for the industry since several international brands in the U.S and Europe are associated with companies here, a source in the garment sector said, and added that sudden disruption would have repercussions on the workforce.
Meanwhile, Bengaluru’s IT industry, which accounts for more than 50 per cent of the nation’s exports, was affected with most companies operating only critical business functions. “We have not informed clients about the situation and have asked our employees to work from home wherever possible to ensure business continuity,” said a senior IT official in a U.S.-based MNC.
Experts in the IT industry also felt that such kind of violent protests and bandhs have the potential to tarnish Bengaluru’s global reputation of a peaceful IT investment destination. Sanchit Vir Gogia, founder and CEO, Greyhound Research, said, “These kinds of protests and strikes have a potential to impact the global image of Bengaluru as an IT destination.”
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