FAPCCI senior vice-president Shivkumar Rungta and vice-president V. Anil Reddy on Monday expressed concern over power cuts and power holidays for industrial consumers in the State as announced by the DISCOMs.
The announcement has come as a rude shock to the industry as they were still coping with the losses incurred last year due to acute power shortage and the R & C measures imposed by APERC, they said. “From August 1 last year the R & C measures were removed and within seven months power cuts are back again and the industry was asked to stop production for one day in a week. Undoubtedly this will be increased to two days and even three days, as was done last year apart from peak hour restrictions from 6pm to 10pm on all days”, they added.
Then Chief Minister and Transco officials, time and again assured the industrial consumers that there will not be any power cuts for industry this year and 100% power will be supplied. They had also assured that short-term and medium-term power purchase agreements were made by DISCOMs to meet the power requirement in the State. APTransco chairman in the SAC meeting held on January 16, 2014 had said arrangements were made to meet the demand for power for February to May 2014. In spite of these statements made by the Chief Minister and the Officials, now industries are subjected to power cuts even before summer has begun, they deplored. They requested the APERC to take suitable measures to protect the industry from the power cuts and streamline the power supply.
“Yesterday’s announcement of power cuts and power holidays to various categories of consumers is most unfortunate. In spite of our repeated requests to make arrangements for continuous power supply to the industry for the past four months power department has failed to take any measures to save the industry. This clearly shows lack of foresight and apathy towards the industrial consumers”, they added. (NSS)
