White goods retailers in state seek nod to restart operations

Chennai: Ten white goods retailers have written to the TN chief minister Edappadi Palaniswamy seeking his intervention to allow restart of operations in districts where they have been asked to shut down.

Major retail chains including Viveks, Shahs, Girias, Vasanth and Co are among the signatories of the letter, which fears job losses might start impacting one lakh of families, besides a steep drop in direct and indirect tax revenues to the state.

“It has already been 45 days since we’ve closed our operations. We request you to allow our operations in individual districts. Further delay will result in loss of jobs to the tune of 30%-40% where around 10,000 families (directly impacted) will lose their livelihood. There are lakhs of families depending on this industry in manufacturing, logistics, service engineers and advertising agencies, who will also lose their livelihood,” said the letter.

Through the letter, the retailers estimate the Tamil Nadu consumer electronics and home appliance market at nearly Rs 7,500 crore a year. Stressing upon the revenue, GST contribution and the number of jobs created in the state, the retailers add that collectively, the industry employs around 25,000 front line salesmen and approximately 1,500 backend employees.

The industry contribution to GST revenues is Rs 1,875 crore a year and 40% of this contributes in the month of March, April and May, the letter further said.

“We have a lot of challenges like rent, salary and government bills aggregating to Rs 300 crore. We request you to allow our operations in individual districts where we have been asked to shut down and we assure you that we will follow the Government rules and regulations for Covid-19,” the contents said.

The retailers further added that they operate on wafer-thin margins and the costs such as government bills, rent etc are adding to their burden.