Hyderabad: Citizens are gearing up for power cuts and distributors have already started placing advance orders to manufacturing companies for invertors and diesel gen-sets. Within the last three years, sales have increased by more than 50 per cent as per power department officials. Inverter distributors, meanwhile, are expecting the per-month turnovers to go from Rs 40-50 lakh to Rs 70 lakh this summer.
Inverters have become a mandatory household item and this year, each distributor (there are more than 140) is expecting a jump in sales by at least 300 inverters per month. “With each spell of power cuts, especially scheduled cuts being imposed in the city, we see as much as a 10 per cent sudden jump in sales. On an average a 12 to 15 per cent jump is being seen each year,” said Naveen Reddy, a dealer from Ameerpet.
“Last year, each inverter distributor made a turnover of Rs 40 to Rs 50 lakh per month during the summer season. This year we are expecting it to go up to Rs 70 lakh per distributor during the months when scheduled cuts are imposed. Most distributors will be maintaining stocks of 300 inverters (batteries sold together). The sales are expected to be between 250 to 300 inverters per distributor this year, while sales were roughly 200 inverters per distributor last year,” said Ramakanth Rao, MD of Inverter Bazaar.
It is also expected that running gen-sets will be slightly cheaper this year due to the falling diesel prices. The SME sector, however, does not think that it will be of much help. “Running a diesel gen-set costs at least Rs16-20 per unit of power. Depending upon the capacity of the generators (between 20 KVA to 500 KVA), the cost of power generated will be more than four times the cost of electricity. The slight decrease in diesel cost will be negligible,” said P. Krishna, president of the Jeedimetla Industrial Association.
