The Tamil Nadu Government has agreed to consider relief measures sought by the industry to mitigate power shortage.

This follows a representation by an industry delegation led by the Confederation of Indian Industry–Tamil Nadu State Council to the Deputy Chief Minister, Mr M.K. Stalin, on Thursday.

According to a statement from CII, the delegation represented issues relating to the impact of the acute power shortage on the competitiveness of industries in Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu, in particular, is going through a phase of intense competition from neighbouring States.

Ms R. Nandini, Chairperson, CII-TN Council, said the State Government has agreed to consider the industry's requests, including calculating demand charges based on injected power at the receiving end after deducting transmission loss, fixing quota based on average of any three consecutive months' consumption giving an advantage to the consumer so that the he/she gets reasonable quota from Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation Ltd, waiving cross subsidy surcharge subject to restriction and control measures, and that appropriate commercial tariff be charged only beyond 0.5 per cent of the power consumption on incidental activities such as canteen and garden.

According to a CII official, these measures will help bring down power costs for the industry at present.

For instance, units cannot fully use the power generated by their captive wind energy generators or third party power purchases due to power cuts. But they were being billed on consumption basis. Now the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) will consider the injected units while billing. .

Industrial units also were expected to take a separate line for utilities. But now subject to a ceiling of 0.5 per cent of consumption the TNEB will allow HT charges, the official said.

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