SISSA Appeal
The South India Small Spinners’ Association has appealed to the State Government to grant subsidy to industries to operate generator sets for captive power generation and consumption. Association president G. Soundararajan told presspersons here on Monday that the small-scale spinning units were facing six to eight hours of power cut a day. Though about 25 per cent of its 550 members had generator sets, they were unable to use the sets as the power generation cost worked out to nearly Rs. 13 a unit. Power cost constituted a substantial portion of the production cost of yarn.A 12,000 spindle mill required 3.6 lakh units of power a month. With the power cut, nearly 50 per cent of the production was affected. Some of the smaller units had stopped production as it was unviable to run the mill now, he said. Though the association welcomed the State Government’s announcement of assistance for generator sets, Mr. Soundararajan said the units needed assistance to operate the generator sets. The cost of power from private generators was also high and hence the small-scale units were unable to benefit.
If the situation continued, the small-scale spinning units would have to stop production completely as it would not be viable to run the units. The mills asked the Government to distribute the power shortage equally to all consumers and to provide two year moratorium for the units to repay the loans.. A group of industry representatives from Coimbatore planned to meet the Chief Minister shortly and the association would decide the future course of action after that, he said.
