The steady cut down in production at the Nokia India factory before it was closed, not only left thousands of employees jobless but also had a cascading impact on the overall handling of electronics and electrical goods at the Chennai airport.

Rapid dip The volume of import and export of electronics and electrical goods at the airport declined at a rapid pace over the last two years to about one-third for export cargo while imports were halved.

When Nokia’s manufacturing was at its peak in 2012-13, export of electronics and electrical goods at the airport was 23,600 tonnes. However, the volume dropped to nearly a third to 5,746 tonnes in 2014-15. “Nokia was the major contributor to the drop,” said an airport official.

It was not a good sign with imports either. In 2012-13, import of electronic and electrical goods was 42,192 tonnes, which dropped by 33 per cent to 28,325 tonnes in 2014-15.

“Nokia had a big effect on our cargo handling in the last two years. There was a gradual reduction in handling of electronics goods at the airport, which reflected the slowing down of production by Nokia from second half of 2013,” said a senior official of the Chennai airport.

Chain effect As Nokia shut down the plant in November 2014, its major suppliers such as Foxconn too closed down their units inside the Nokia SEZ at Sriperumbdur due to lack of orders.

“If we had not lost the electronics goods, our financials would have been very healthy. Other companies in the vicinity such as Jabil and BYD too shut down their production affecting our electronics traffic badly,” the official said.

Nokia India was caught in an income tax and commercial tax wrangle with the Centre and State government. This resulted in the plant being left out of the global deal when Microsoft acquired Nokia Corporation in 2014.

At its peak, mobile manufacturing from Sriperumbudur was nearly 10 per cent of world production till 2012. This has completely dropped in the last four years, Pankaj Mohindroo, President, Indian Cellular Association, recently told BusinessLine .

Revival to bring cheers Once the Nokia production facility is revived, the entire ecosystem in the region will change, he said. “We need to see that the plant is revived then the sentiment will return. There is a prime capacity lying idle and we are investing elsewhere,” he said.

Last Friday, Mohindroo, as chairman of the Fast Track Task Force for revival of mobile handset manufacturing industry constituted under the Union Ministry of Communication and IT, met with the Tamil Nadu Government officials to discuss restarting the manufacturing facility.

This was the first such meeting after the Nokia plant’s closure, he said.

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