Several associations of industries, trade, hotels, cinema halls and others decried here on Wednesday the hefty penalties being imposed on use of excess power from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. and said it was highly arbitrary and unrealistic to penalise them for what was not their fault. At a joint press conference, several representatives of the associations lashed out at “the arbitrary decision of the AP Electricity Regulatory Commission” to restrict the use of power to 10 per cent of the sanctioned load during the peak hours (from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.) and said it was proving to be crippling to the industry, trade, hotels and cinema halls.
O. Naresh Kumar, Vice-President of the Rushikonda IT Units' Association, said the distribution and transmission losses in the AP Eastern Power Distribution Company Ltd, here were the lowest in the State, at 7 per cent. Power allocation to the Visakhapatnam region in fact was the lowest, he said.
Hollow claims
He also ridiculed the State Government's “hollow claims of attracting new investments worth Rs 1 lakh crores into the State”, when it was not able to supply power to the existing units. “If new units are set up, the existing power will have to be shared and the old units, already on the verge of closure, will suffer further. Therefore, as there is no likely addition to power, new units are not welcome in the State,” he said. Ramakrishna Narappareddy, President of Visakha Autonagar Small-scale Industrialists' Welfare Association, said there were 600 units in the autonagar and many of the micro and small units were on the brink. K. Vamsi Krishna, joint secretary of the AP Film Chamber of Commerce, K.P Rao, of the Vizag Hoteliers’ Association, Prashant, of Hotel Dasapalla, V. Narayana Rao, Secretary of Vizagapatam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Vishnu Kumar Raju, President of Rushikonda IT Units' Association, spoke in the same tenor. sarma.rs@thehindu