TN govt urged by SIMA to streamline electricity supply

21 Jan '12

5 min read

Tamilnadu has been facing acute power shortage from 2008 onwards threatening the very survival of the power intensive industries like textiles in the State.

The lopsided policies adopted on demand side management by TANGEDCO is favouring certain regions, certain consumers while others are loaded with higher power cut, load shedding, restriction on drawal of power, etc. In addition, for the first time in the history of TANGEDCO, the relationship with industries was strained due to short sighted and unreasonable methodology adopted by TANGEDCO during 2008 to 2011 thus creating lot of confusions and making almost all the industries resorting to legal remedies.

The Electricity Act of 2003, formation of TNERC and with the reforms brought in the Electricity Board; it is supposed to ensure flexibility and better services to the consumers. However, due to abnormal subsidies extended to domestic consumers and free power schemes prevailing in the State for different consumers including agriculture, huts, etc., made one of the most efficient TANGEDCO to incur huge losses and today Board is not able to make any substantial investment to modernize the power plants and transmission lines. The necessary budget provisioning has to be made by the State Government to wipe out the losses which have been caused mainly due to subsidies and free power supply.

It is also very essential to enforce metering of all the free power supplies. Since the State would continue to face power crisis at least for the next five years as per the Policy Note of Energy Department of Government of Tamilnadu, a proper demand side management and industry-friendly policies would ensure minimum losses to both TANGEDCO and the industries in the State.

As a long term measure, it is essential to segregate the industry feeder through PPP mode to start with in the industrial cluster like Coimbatore to have the flexibility in power purchase under open access system to facilitate uninterrupted supply to the industrial units.

Mr.S.Dinakaran, Chairman, The Southern India Mills' Association (SIMA) has appealed to the Hon'ble Chief Minister of Tamilnadu, who is making strenuous efforts to streamline the policies of TANGEDCO to kindly look into the demand side management policies, ensure equitable distribution of power shortage across the State including Chennai and all the consumers.

SIMA Chairman has appealed to the Hon'ble Chief Minister to review the MoUs entered into with multinational companies and also exemptions given to different categories of consumers and regions from peak hour restrictions, load shedding and power cut and distribute the shortage which will be of higher magnitude during summer equally amongst all the consumers and load the losses equally. He has remarked that it is unfair to pass the maximum burden on the textile industry, which is backbone of the State's economy, rural employment, revenue to exchequer, revenue to TANGEDCO which also ensures inclusive growth of the State and the country. He has stated that the power intensive textile industry, which accounts for 1/3rd of the textile business, provides direct employment to over 50 lakh people, earns over Rs.70,000 crores of foreign exchange, is already saddled with too many problems like high transportation cost for procuring over 98% of its raw material from other States by spending Rs.4/- per kg of cotton and equal amount to sell more than 50% of the yarn in other States, 5% VAT, 1% Market Committee Fee, high wages, etc.

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