New Delhi, Dec 04: Forced by poor quality of power and operating environment-related downtime, India Inc could be losing over Rs 22,000 crore in 2003, up from Rs 20,000 crore last year, with Delhi recording the highest level of daily power disruption at 28 per cent, according to a study by Mait-Emerson Network Power. The loss is around 2.2 per cent of the gross output of the total industrial and services sectors and higher than last year's Rs 20,000 crore, the study said.

Delhi is followed by Bangalore at 22 per cent in power disruption while firms in Mumbai, Kolkata and Hyderabad experienced fewer such disruptions.

Over 85 per cent firms have a power source other than grid supply, it said.

Scheduled power cuts due to infrastructure stress on power utilities is one of the key reasons for downtime and 61 per cent of the Indian industry is sceptical about improvement in the states' power scenario.

In 80 per cent of the cases, power is restored within an hour. Power restoration within 30 minutes is down from 66 per cent to 56 per cent, indicating slower response time. "Contigency planning is part of the India Inc mindset based on traditional experiences with infrastructure limitations. This trend will continue in the light of the global power failures encountered in western countries", Vinnie Mehta, executive director, Manufacturers Association of Information Technology, said.

Firms will need to pay more attention to maximising uptime if they are to remain competitive in a globally networked economy, he said. Bureau Report