Power intensive industries such as textile mills are asking the Government to impose uniform power cut across the State and streamline the demand side management of TANGEDCO (Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation Ltd).
“We are suffering from erratic supply of power and the situation is worsening by the day. Instead of resorting to irregular supply and unscheduled power cut, the Government should consider increasing the power cut from 20 per cent to 40 per cent across the State for all HT (High Tension), HT Commercial and LTCT consumers to mitigate the power crisis and ensure uninterrupted supply.
This would help reduce the load shedding to 2 hours instead of over 5 hours at present,” the Southern India Mills Association (SIMA) Chairman, Mr S. Dinakaran, said. Blaming the TANGEDCO for its lopsided policies on demand management and alleging the corporation of favouring certain regions and certain consumers by loading the others with high power cut and restriction on withdrawal of power, the SIMA chief said that this unreasonable methodology compelled almost all industries seek legal remedy.
Mr Dinakaran has appealed to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms J. Jayalalithaa, to streamline the policies of TANGEDCO and ensure that the burden of power shortage is equally distributed across the State including Chennai and all consumers.
He has appealed to the Chief Minister to review the MoUs entered with MNCs and the exemption given to different categories of consumers and regions from peak hour restriction, load shedding and power cuts.
He has also appealed for removal of bottlenecks in wind evacuation to avoid wastage of wind energy and urged the Government to extend the exemption of generation tax and VAT on furnace oil till the R&C measures are put in place to give further relief to TANGEDCO.