DMK leader Senthilbalaji says six- to 12-hour power cuts in Tamil Nadu raise operating costs for auto plants and textile mills. The political pressure builds ahead of summer demand.
Alpha Score of 49 reflects weak overall profile with moderate momentum, poor value, weak quality, moderate sentiment.
Former electricity minister V Senthilbalaji accused the new TVK government of failing to manage the state's power grid, alleging outages of six to 12 hours a day force residents onto the streets in protest. His statement Sunday targeted the ruling party's focus on "social media optics" instead of fixing the supply gap.
Senthilbalaji, a senior DMK leader, said the government has delivered "profound disappointment" after promising change during the election campaign. Night-time road blockades have become routine across Chennai and other regions, he claimed. He questioned why the electricity minister, CTR Nirmalkumar, suggested fuse-carrier theft as a cause for outages that occur at night.
The Dravidian Model government under MK Stalin managed rising demand without cutting power to the public, Senthilbalaji argued. That contrast hits a government only a month old.
Tamil Nadu hosts a dense industrial corridor. Auto assembly lines and textile mills depend on a reliable power supply. Sustained six-hour gaps force factories to run diesel generators, raising operating costs by an estimated 15–20% per unit of output, according to industry estimates from the Southern India Chamber of Commerce. Companies with continuous processes – chemical plants, cold storage, data centers – face the highest exposure.
Listed firms with large Tamil Nadu operations should already have captive power backup built into margin forecasts. If outages stretch into weeks, diesel costs accumulate and earnings guidance may require revision. The immediate risk is higher overhead for auto suppliers and textile exporters operating on thin margins.
The political timeline adds pressure. If the TVK government cannot restore reliability before the summer peak, when demand rises another 10–15%, the issue escalates from local grievance to national scrutiny. That scenario would pressure bond spreads of the state-owned electricity distributor, Tangedco, which already carries elevated debt.
For now, the only hard data point is Senthilbalaji's allegation: power cuts of six to 12 hours. The electricity minister has not issued a detailed response. The DMK's warning is a signal for investors to review exposure to the state's industrial supply chain.
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