BACK TO THE WALL
THE CONCERN IN PRAKASH PADIKKAL’S VOICE is quite palpable. Padikkal, 65, owns Havistha Steel, a company in Navi Mumbai that makes equipment and storage tanks for the chemicals, food and pharmaceutical sectors. Classified as an essential business, Padikkal is allowed to keep work going, exempted from the restrictions in place in Maharashtra, which were just extended from May 1 until May 15. Nonetheless, he says he faces a financial squeeze, with low demand because of various Covid-19 lockdowns across India on the one side and rising input costs on the other. He says prices of one input—mild steel—have shot up from near Rs 40 a kg to about Rs 85 a kg, and that he is stuck with the loss since many of his contracts use fixed prices.
Padikkal’s plight is the norm for the owners of MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) in the states impacted most by Covid 2.0, including Maharashtra. These states have announced increasingly tight restrictions following the latest wave of cases, and on April 26, the Centre advised the states to implement even stricter movement
