Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Saturday, Feb 21, 2004
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Saturday, Feb 21, 2004 |
||
|
|
||
|
Corporate
-
Announcements Uncertainty over Indal unit continues G.K. Nair
Kochi , Feb. 20 STALEMATE in reaching an agreement on the power tariff with the Power Trading Corporation (PTC) by the Aditya Birla Group's Indian Aluminium Company (Indal) at nearby Eloor is likely to delay indefinitely the re-opening of the unit. Now the PTC is asking for a higher rate while the Indal wanted a "viable tariff rate," senior company sources told Business Line on Friday. "We are waiting for a decision from the PTC and it will take some time," he said. Discussions with the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) on the wheeling charges would be taken up after finding out a workable solution with the PTC, he said. Therefore, re-opening of the smelter unit might take some more time as "it depends on the availability of power at affordable rates", he said, adding that "uncertainty remains". He said that the PTC had agreed to supply power at Rs 2.50 per unit some nine months ago and based on which the company had sought permission of the Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission (KSERC) to draw power from the PTC. But then, the corporation had "made some changes in its power tariff. At that point of time we were not able to enter into a contract with it," he said. "Now we are in discussions with the PTC and hope to reach some settlement." Though the Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission (KSERC) has granted permission to Indal to draw power from the PTC, the company feels that the wheeling charges fixed by the commission is on the higher side. When the wheeling charges of Rs 0.42 per unit is added the power cost per unit would go up to Rs 2.92 and the company feels that "anything beyond Rs 2.80 per unit would make the unit unviable," he said. The increase of Rs 0.13 per unit would result in the company suffering a loss of around Rs 50 lakh per month, he added. On a request by Indal, after the KSEB had raised its power tariff to Rs 3.40 per unit, the PTC had agreed earlier to supply power to the company at Rs 2.50 per unit. The company had then sought permission of the KSERC for drawing power from the PTC, which the commission had granted last week. The company would have to pay a wheeling charge of Rs 0.42 per unit to the KSEB. Management sources said that the company was a major consumer of power with 20 million units per month. Prior to August 2001, the company was paying Rs 4.5 crore towards power charges per month and it had increased to Rs 6.75 crore now following the two hikes thereafter in power tariff introduced by the State electricity board. At this rate the unit cannot be run profitably and it had become economically unviable, they said. Indal has been functioning in the State since 1943 and power is the major raw material of this plant and that constituted 61 per cent of the cost of production. Trade unions have now asked the management to re-open the smelter unit immediately.
More Stories on : Announcements | Aluminium | Power | Kerala
Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page
|
Stories in this Section |
|
The Hindu Group: Home | About Us | Copyright | Archives | Contacts | Subscription Group Sites: The Hindu | Business Line | Sportstar | Frontline | The Hindu eBooks | The Hindu Images | Home |
Copyright © 2004, The
Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of
this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of
The Hindu Business Line
|