Industry associations of Coimbatore have appealed to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister to accord priority to strengthening the Southern grid to enable transmission of surplus power from other states to Tamil Nadu.

They also wanted the Government to restrict hours that shops and malls were open to ensure use of available power for ‘productive purposes’.

In a memorandum addressed to the Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, leaders of seven industry associations based at Coimbatore reiterated the demand for a level playing field in the distribution of power among all regions in the State. While Chennai was having power cut for one hour daily, the rest of Tamil Nadu had to contend with seven hours of load shedding and four hours of peak hour restriction.

They said Chennai accounted for 1/3{+r}{+d} of the grid load of the State and felt that uniform enforcement of power cut across the State for all consumers would lead to ‘equitable availability of power’.

The industry leaders pointed out that by supplying uninterrupted power for specified duration and maintaining load shedding at one go would help industrial consumers plan their man power utilisation and production and cut down the losses. It would also help Tangedco to schedule better power supply to domestic and other consumers.

They said the State Government should give priority to strengthen the Southern grid to enable supply of surplus power from other regions to Tamil Nadu and the State should urge the Centre to hasten the connectivity of east, north and north eastern grids with the southern grid.

The associations suggested that available power should be utilised for productive purposes and restrictions should be imposed on non-productive uses such as extravagant lighting. Working of malls and shops should be restricted to 8 p.m., as done in places like Delhi, they said.

Other steps they suggested included offering tax concessions for captive power generation, encouraging HT consumers to buy from other sources and replacement of incandescent lamps with CFL lamps etc. They appreciated the steps taken by the Chief Minister in mitigating the power crisis.

The representation was jointly made by D. Balasundaram, President, Tamil Nadu Electricity Consumers Association, R.R. Balasundharam, President, Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, T. Rajkumar, Deputy Chairman, Southern India Mills’ Association, R. Ramachandran, President, Coimbatore District Small Industries Association, T.C. Thiagarajan, President, Southern India Engineering Manufacturers’ Association, S.V. Devarajan, President, the South India Spinners Association and R. Baskaran, Chairman, Institute of Indian Foundrymen, Coimbatore.

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