Comments
The Andhra Pradesh Recycled Paper Mills' Association has sought the State Government to declare it a continuous process industry so that the units are given uninterrupted power for at least four days a week.
Since there is a power holiday for three days a week, this will enable the units to operate at least at 50 per cent capacity.
The office-bearers of the association — R. Rajendran (President) and S. Saibaba (Treasurer) — along with B.V Rama Rao, President of the Federation of Andhra Pradesh Industries (FAPI), met Ahamed Nadeem, Chairman and Managing Director of AP Eastern Power Distribution Company Ltd, here on Wednesday and submitted a representation to him to that effect.
They said in the memorandum that there were 38 recycled paper mills in the State with a total capacity of 2,000 tonnes per day and a turnover of Rs 1,700 crore.
Their power consumption is estimated at 50 MW and they pay Rs 220 crore as power bills per annum. The combined waste paper consumption of these units is 2,500 TPD.
Power supply
They said unscheduled power interruptions were causing huge losses to the units. Therefore, if possible, power should be provided on all days of the week without interruption or at least on four days a week. There should not be any peak-hour load restrictions on those four days from 6 p.m to 10.30 p.m.
The units were finding it difficult at present to operate at even half the capacity and therefore the operations had become unviable. The Government should therefore categorise the units as continuous process industries and provide them relief.
Open access policy
The association also pleaded that the open access policy should be adopted by the State Government, enabling the units to purchase power from private producers and allowing them to use the transmission lines of AP Transco.
The cross-subsidy charges and taxes should be waived on power purchased from private players. As the State Government was not in a position to provide power to the units, it should at least allow them to buy it from others.
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.