TN govt assures 4 hours power supply to MSMEs

The Tamil Nadu government has said that it is taking steps to ensure a minimum of four hours of continuous power supply to micro and small enterprises. The announcement comes at a time when industry is facing power cuts of about 14 hours a day in the southern parts of the state.

While industry has sought uninterrupted power supply for eight hours during the day, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa said last week that the government has taken steps to ensure a minimum of four hours of continuous power supply for small enterprises.

J James, president of the Tamil Nadu Association of Cottage and Micro Enterprises, added that the units are facing daily power cuts of 14 hours — eight hours during the day time and six hours after 6 pm. “We are hardly able to work for four hours a day, and even during that time the voltage is either very low or the power goes off every few minutes,” he said.

He noted that in Coimbatore, one of the largest engineering hubs in the country, where components for products ranging from bicycles to aircraft are manufactured, there were some 50,000 units during the good times. However, over the past year about 5,500 units have closed down and lakhs of people have lost their jobs.

“Take the example of my own factory. During the good times, I employed 30 people, but now I have only five employees,” said James.

He added that if the government is unable to provide eight hours of uninterrupted power, it should be supplied in two time slots of four hours each, with just one hour of load-shedding in between.

Besides, if the state government withdraws its tax on diesel, power sourced by big companies from diesel gensets will cost about the same as grid power, said James. The power supplied to them from the grid can then be given to small units. “If this happens, we can get 2,000-2,500 Mw, which will be more than enough for the small units.”

S Vinod from the textile town of Tirupur, which exports knitwear worth some Rs 12,000 crore a year, said that in the last few days textile units have been getting power for only five hours during the day. However, power supply needs to be rescheduled to ensure that it is uninterrupted, he added.