TN: Textile industry in loss due to power shortage

Coimbatore Jun, 2: Coimbatore, proudly called as India's textile capital, which has more than 22,00 spinning mills is coming down slowly because of the power cuts happening for more than 7 hours.

"The production has come down in the city by 40 percent and many units are on the brim of closing down. The production loss is about RS 55-60 crores per day and the industry is very badly affected since power constitutes to 40 per cent of our expenses. The crisis is in a very bad situation and if things don't improve the mills will have to close down due to the losses, " said J Thulasidharan, Chairman of The Southern India Mills' Association.

Coimbatore's small factories (10,000 approx) are also hit badly due to the power cuts. Throughout the day only 80 percent of their requirement from power is fulfilled, but during the peak hours, i e, 6 to 10 pm, the rate drops down to 10 percent. This is leaving aside the scheduled power cuts that happens for 3 hours every day.

"These are continuous process industries and we are not able to use generators to back us up because the input voltage requirement varies from 500-600 Volts which is not available in the generating segment. So this causes us to shut down or go for power purchase in the power exchanges."

Tamil Nadu demands power of about 10, 600 MW and gets a shortage of 2000 MW, whereas Coimbatore gets a shortage of 600 MW.

"There is a shortfall of 600-700 MW for Coimbatore alone out of the 1500 MW for the state's shortfall and that's because it's a high consumer region with max number of HT consumers located in Coimbatore next," said, Mahendra Ramdas, President, Tamil Nadu Electricity Consumers Association.

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