Textile mills shocked by cotradicting promise of TNEB: SIMA

Coimbatore, July 23 (UNI) The Southern India Mills' Association (SIMA) Chairman Dr K V Srinivasan said the textile mills were shocked to receive communications from the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) contradicting the promise made by the state Electricity Minister during the recent meeting at Chennai.

In a press release here today, Dr Srinivasan said the State Electricity Minister had requested the Industry Associations and HT/EHT consumers to co-operate for a 24 hour power holiday in a week and ensured uninterrupted power supply for the remaining days.On the contrary, the textile mills in various parts of the State had received intimations from TNEB, announcing 2 hours shut down during day time and instructing not to draw power for 4 hours daily apart from adhering to 24 hours power holiday in a week, he said.

It resulted to a minimum of 60 hours power shut down period every week, he said adding that this would work out to minimum 36 per cent capacity utilisation loss, loss of jobs to lakhs of people and heavy cash loss for the textile industry.

Dr Srinivasan said the industry which had been already reeling under severe recession due to soaring cotton price, high bank interest rate and high transportation cost was saddled with severe power shortage in the State. The TNEB had never distributed the power shortage uniformly across the State, he added.

He said the industry had no other option than closing the shutters for the remaining period and leaving lakhs of people jobless, and this trend would soon lead to industrial unrest.

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