61/2 Hours Power Cut
The Tamil Nadu Electricity Board has issued a revised load shedding schedule for the consumers of Coimbatore region. According to the new schedule, electricity consumers in the district will go without power for six-and-a-half hours a day from October 10. An official of the board told that apart from this, high tension (HT) consumers had been asked not to use grid power from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Use of welding sets during the peak hours was also banned. The board appealed to the public not to use luxury lighting. “We hope these measures will minimise the unscheduled power cuts,” the official said. According to Coimbatore Consumer Cause secretary K. Kathirmathiyon these measures would not help solve the problem. The Board should make efforts for a permanent solution. The problem of power cuts started with one or two hours of load shedding a day and was at six-and-a-half hours now. This could go up further if a permanent solution was not found.
The Board should announce official power cut for HT industrial consumers and compensate them suitably. Demand should be curtailed by not providing new connections for HT consumers. “The board should make sincere efforts to save energy by banning luxury lighting,” he said. Further, it should treat all consumers across the State equally. According to Coimbatore District Small Industries’ Association president K. Ilango, with the revised schedule, industries would go without grid power for nine-and-a half hours a day. “They are making it impossible for industries to operate,” Mr. Ilango said.
Southern India Mills’ Association chairman K.V. Srinivasan said this would lead to closure of industries as the problem was expected to continue for the next three or four years. And, the only option was to run the diesel generator sets. So, the Government should expedite announcement regarding operating diesel gensets for captive generation and consumption. The industrial associations here, representing micro to large-scale units, will meet on Friday to decide the future course of action.
