Frequent powercut caused production losses
The Southern India Mills’ Association has appealed to the State Government to distribute the power shortage uniformly across the State and announce power cuts accordingly.In a release, the association president, K.V. Srinivasan, said the deteriorating power position in the State caused production loss in textile mills. With frequent power disruptions and unplanned shutdowns, the mills incurred huge loss and the units had to keep the labour idle during the shutdown period. “The textile industry, which is already passing through severe recession due to sudden appreciation in rupee against the U.S. dollar, high cotton price, high bank interest rate and high power tariff, has become uncompetitive in the globalised environment.”He said the textile sector was the single largest consumer of electricity, using 47 per cent of the connected load. Of the total generation capacity, textile sector alone consumed 35 per cent of the high tension power.The industry, which was incurring Rs. 3 to Rs. 5 a kg for transportation of the raw material from other States and three per cent Central Sales Tax for cotton (which is not VATable) was already losing its competitive edge even in the domestic market. Captive power generation too had become totally uneconomical and therefore the mills were forced to keep the factory idle when power supply was not available.
Capacity utilisation had exceeded 15 per cent in most of the mills during the week and the problem was expected to aggravate during summer.Mr. Srinivasan said there was no uniformity in distributing the shortage. Circles such as Chennai experienced minimal power tripping. If the current situation in the other parts of the State continued, the mills would become Non-Performing Assets leading to closure. The Government should intervene and take steps such as announcing the power cut timing, he said.
