Pump Makers Are Gasping

Post-GST business thins to a trickle for small units. Time has again come for Kovai to prove resilience.

- G.C. Shekhar

THE decrepit tile roof above him symbolises the plight of Prathap Sekar’s small machining unit in one pocket of the city. The 34-year-old Coimbatorean is no more sure of a recovery in his business. “First, the demonetisat­ion (of November 8, 2016) slowed down my machines. Then the GST (goods and services tax, on July 1, 2017) has shut them down,” he bemoans.

For the last three months, orders that Sekar used to get from a leading pump manufacturer and good old clients have thinned to a trickle. This January they stopped completely. “I still have some 200 pieces of motor end covers the pump company had ordered,” he points out. “I cannot blame them. For, they are yet to get about Rs 20 lakh as GST refund.”

He has asked his four employees to find jobs elsewhere till the situation improves. Sekar himself is working part-time in another machining unit to make sure that his wife and their school-going daughter do not go hungry. Coimbatore, which is home to hundreds of such tiny industrial units, teems with similar tales of woes in the wake of GST.