After going through a difficult period in the past couple of years, industries in the state are not ready to face another round of adversity in the name of power holidays during the ensuing summer.
As soon as the state power utilities informed their intent of imposing power holiday for three days a week starting this month, the Federation of Andhra Pradesh Small Industries Associations (Fapsia) threatened to go for a 15-day lay off against the move.
Other industry bodies like the Federation of Andhra Pradesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Fapcci) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) suggested to the government that they were willing to bear higher tariff on peak hour supplies if the government bought power from high cost sources such as RLNG to meet their needs.
A proposal to supply high cost power at higher tariff to the industry has already been placed before the Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC) for its approval.
At a meeting held here on Wednesday, the energy department officials informed the industry representatives that it would not possible to buy enough power from outside the state due to corridor constraints. The only way left to augment the supply was through increasing the generation at gas-based power projects, which are currently running at low PLF due to natural gas shortage.
Energy official, though agreeing on RLNG fuel on condition that they would pass on the burden to the end users, said they should at least contract 500 Mw of supply to book the capacity from gas power stations. Fapcci representatives said the medium and big industrial units would take 400 Mw of power at high cost while the remaining 100 Mw should be exclusively allocated to small-scale industries at the existing rates.
According to Fapsia, there are some 160,000 units in about 28 industrial estates located in and around Hyderabad employing 1.7 million people. They together require 336 Mw every day, but there is going to be a supply gap of 100 Mw in the coming days. "When the government is not in a position to supply 100 Mw power to save the livelihood of so many people working in these industrial estates who will believe that it is going to handle Rs 6 lakh crore investments," questioned A Vijay Kumar, president of Fapsia. His said they would not agree for power holiday of any duration as the companies were not in a position to bear the losses.
Industry minister J Geeta Reddy expressed her inability at yesterday's meeting stating that the government would try to get some relief.