Tamil Nadu spinning sector loses Rs 950 cr on power cuts

The spinning sector in Tamil Nadu has lost 3.89 per cent machinery utilisation due to power tripping in 2006, amounting to a loss of Rs 950 crore, apart from increasing the cost of maintaining electrical and electronics components.

Power tripping also led to a huge deterioration in the quality of textile products, resulting in many going waste, according to a survey by the Southern India Mills' Association.

The survey conducted in the January-December 2006 period revealed that the average number of trippings per month per mill was around 29, with an average tripping time of 31 minutes. Stating that tripping was very frequent not only in rural and agricultural feeders, but also in urban feeders, the survey said it was not uniform between mills within the same circle.

The minimum number of trippings for some mills was less than five and more than 40 for others. While the duration varied from one to five minutes, it was more than four hours for others, the survey said.

In addition, compulsory shutdowns in the name of maintenance and also informing the mills not to draw power for two or eight hours, happened too often.

The electricity board earlier used to announce power cuts, enabling the industry to plan production pattern, captive power generation and save fixed expenses like maximum demand charges and also variable expenses like peak hour charges, apart from improving component life. "The board has been declaring that it has no official power shortage, which is mere a political stand, thus affecting the profitability of the HT industry," the survey said.

TNEB was facing around 10 to 15 percentage power shortage, which was distributed among the HT industry in a 'haphazard manner', resulting in huge loss for the textile industry. The situation was likely to worsen in summer till the wind turbine generators resume normal working (till wind seasons begins), the survey claimed.

Abnormal variation in power quality supplied by TNEB was causing motor burnouts, poor yarn quality, high waste generation, loss in labour productivity, frequent failures of electrical and electronic items in the industry, it said.

The low frequency, between 48 and 48.5 Hz for most of the day, was unique in the southern region and voltage was also going down to 9 KV against 11 KV. This caused higher line losses, overheating of electrical motors, increased burnouts, low machine utilisation and loss of production of 10 to 15 per cent and high maintenance cost of machinery, it said.

Power consumption has dropped by 2.78 per cent in peak hours, resulting in production loss by 1.30 per cent. Power consumption shot up by 5.65 per cent during off peak hours, compared to normal hours.

Moreover, constant increase in electricity power cost was becoming a major challenging factor for the textile industry, to compete in the global market, the survey said.

The cost of power for a spinning mill, which was two per cent on sales turnover in the 1960's and five per cent in the 80's, has gone up to 14 per cent now. With the present tariff, the power cost constitutes more than one-third of the total conversion cost of converting cotton fibre into yarn (average count 40s). The textile industry is the single largest consumer of TNEB. The spinning sector with 17.84 million spindles and a total sanctioned demand of 1050 MVA "" 480 million units of power per month "" pays around Rs 2,100 crore per month as electricity bill to TNEB. Over two thirds of revenue from the industrial sector was from the textile industry as a whole in Tamil Nadu.

Considering the problems faced by the industry, TNEB should work out a long-term strategy to ensure uninterrupted power supply and bring down tariffs to be on par with global tariffs and Andhra Pradesh and enable the industry have a level playing field in the global market, it said.

The survey suggested that the textile industry be included in the list of continuous process industry, to ensure uninterrupted power supply.

TNEB may enhance lean hour power consumption incentive to 20 per cent from five per cent now to reduce the tariff and encourage maximum consumption during lean hours, the survey added.