In for trouble:Ice blocks are crushed to fill the fish boxes at the Cuddalore Port area.
CUDDALORE:
Ice plants in Cuddalore are facing a tough time owing to sporadic power cuts and the impending fishing holiday for 45 days, to be imposed by the Fisheries Department from April 15.
Of the 20 ice plants in Cuddalore, 50 per cent are being run by the fishing trade and the remaining are stand-alone units. It is the latter who are the hardest hit by the fishing holiday and frequent and unannounced power cuts, according to M.Sankaran, who runs a plant in the Old Town area for the past four years. Mr. Sankaran told The Hindu that on an average, each plant was producing 300 ice blocks of 50 kg each and 90 per cent of the production was meant for the fishing trade and only 10 per cent for the edible ice producers. It usually takes 36 hours for water to solidify into ice blocks in sub-zero temperature in the chambered freezer fixed underground. Any disruption in power supply would drastically affect the cooling temperature and after the supply resumed it might take double the time to attain the same temperature level (the pre-power cut position).
It meant running the plant for longer hours leading to runaway power bills and delay in the production and delivery of ice blocks, resulting in heavy losses. At the fish landing yards the ice blocks were crushed into finer particles and strewn in the fish boxes before loaded onto to the trucks for transportation to markets such as Chennai, Kerala and Bangalore. Mr, Sankaran said that during the fishing holiday the ice units could not be totally shut down because of the practical difficulties faced in restoring them to full stream at a later stage. Hence, the units would be grossly under utilised for the period, thereby incurring huge losses. He noted that whether the plants were run or partially run or totally shut they would have to pay the full wages to retain the workforce.On an average each unit employs 20 persons and even though most of them would get their regular wages they would have to forego the allowance given at the rate of Re 1 per block as loading charges. Mr Sankaran said that the cooling coils in a freezer needed constant replacement because of their corrosive nature.
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