Home appliances and consumer electronics manufacturers said they are gearing up to resume production and are in talks with local authorities for permission to operate factories which are located within or near city municipal limits.
While welcoming the government's guidelines for the extended lockdown giving nod to resume production from April 20, industry body Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA) said there are still ambiguities which need to be cleared.
“Individually, each brand is seeking more clarity and approval on the guidelines … The guidelines say that we would have to open in a phased manner. All brands are gearing up to open up, wherever, it will be permitted," CEAMA President Kamal Nandi said.
He, however, added, "Many places (factories) are falling under red zone and several places under municipal limits, wherever, we have clarity and approvals, we would open up."
Besides, the manufacturers will also have to face the issue of shortage of manpower and social distancing norms at their production facility.
According to Nandi, it would take at least a week for the companies to restart production which has been on a standstill since the lockdown began on March 25.
“Ramp up would not happen on day one. It would take some time. There is also no need to get into mass scale production as there is enough stock with the trade partners and with the e-comm companies,” he added.
Panasonic, which has manufacturing unit at Jhajjar is hoping that it would get permission from the local authorities to operate and start manufacturing activities.
“As our factory in Jhajjar, Haryana is in the green zone, we are hoping to get the permission to start manufacturing soon,” said Panasonic India and South Asia President and CEO Manish Sharma.
He further said, "We are prepared for staggered operations with workers coming in batches ensuring social distancing, frequent sanitizing, usage of masks among other initiatives to protect our workforce.”
While Samsung is in discussion with the local authorities over the new fresh guidelines, which allows manufacturing after April 20.
“Samsung is in talks with the local authorities in relation to the standard operating procedure to open the plants and evaluating the options,” said industry sources close to Samsung.
Daikin India MD & CEO Kanwaljeet Jawa said that the relaxation for manufacturing would bring normalcy in the industry.
“The manufacturing and entailing relaxation is a welcome step towards gradually introducing normalancy and supporting the essential needs of the society at large. But we still must adhere to the protocols as advised by the state and central government''s to fight this pandemic,” said Jawa. However, Haier said allowing only manufacturing would not help much as there would be no retail activity on the ground.
“This opening does not help us much. Until the retail market is open, it would not make much difference to us. To whom, we would sell our products,” said Haier Appliances India President Eric Braganza.
He also highlighted the availability of the workforce to operate the manufacturing units and said: "even if we open at this stage, we would have to use only around 20 to 25 per cent of the manufacturing capacity.'
Braganza also highlighted that due to extension of the lockdown, the manufacturers are going to miss the half season of the sales of cooling products as Airconditioner and refrigerators, which starts from early March and picks up, when mercury rises.
LG Electronic India, which has two manufacturing units at Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh and Pune, has welcomed the move and said permission of sale through e-commerce channels would help the customers to buy cooling products.
“We welcome this move; due to the increase in temperatures consumers are looking to buy compressor products; this will certainly enable some of them to buy consumer durables,” said a LG Spokesperson.
Kitchen appliances maker Wonderchef said the retails sales of the sector, which had witnessed a decline due to the lockdown, will find some ground to recover after permission of online sales.
“As the government eases out the restrictions, we are expecting that the loss which the retail industry has witnessed due to the lockdown will find some ground to recover. There was a need for consumer durables and other non-essential items to be allowed for e-commerce sales along with essential products,” said Wonderchef MD, Ravi Saxena.
Shinco India said it is also going to start sales of its TVs.
“We will be resuming our sales for brand Shinco on Amazon post 20th April 2020, All our call centres have been operational throughout the lockdown and will be operational going forward to assist the customers,” said Shinco India founder Arjun Bajaj.
In fresh guidelines on Wednesday for enforcing the second phase of the coronavirus lockdown, the government barred all kinds of public transport and prohibited opening of public places till May 3.
However, it allowed functioning of industrial units located in rural areas from April 20 while observing strict social distancing norms.
The Prime Minister on Tuesday announced the extension of lockdown till May 3. India is presently going through an unprecedented complete lockdown from March 25, to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.
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