The Hindu : Business : Industry fears worsening of power crisis in Maharashtra

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 05, 2005

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Business

Industry fears worsening of power crisis in Maharashtra

Ramnath Subbu

Action urged within next two weeks

MUMBAI: Industry in India's most highly industrialised State, Maharashtra, is already feeling the effects of acute power shortage. With a shortfall of up to 4,000 MW against an installed capacity of 11,985 MW, representatives of various industries predict that the situation could get worsen in the weeks ahead.

Tata Motors, easily among the largest manufacturing units based in Pune, is now able to run all its shifts at its plant albeit with parallel capacity and at higher cost. "However, the situation could get serious if it is not resolved in the next two weeks,'' P. M. Telang, President, Pune and Dharwad Works, Tata Motors, told The Hindu.

"That is mainly because the situation has hit our component suppliers quite hard. Nearly 70 per cent of our value add is from external suppliers and of this, suppliers from and around Pune, account for 40 per cent of our supplies.''

Arvind Poddar, Joint Managing Director, Siyaram Silk Mills and President, Federation of All India Textile Manufacturers (FAITMA), speaking to this correspondent pointed out that "those manufacturers without Diesel Generating (DG) sets for alternative power would be extremely hard hit. Overall production of textiles in Maharashtra could be down by about a third because the power cut is for around eight hours now. The cost of DG sets for manufacturers still works out to Rs. 3.5-4 a unit. For the textile industry, the all round production loss including the larger units that are equipped with DG sets would be around 20 per cent,'' he said.

These problems, however, pale in comparison to the plight of the powerloom industry, particularly in what is ostensibly the powerloom capital, Bhiwandi. Already blighted by an average of six hour power cuts daily for the last few years, the present position has only compounded the woes.

"We are used to power cuts but 8-9 hours is too much. Someone must understand that the industry has been running at a loss. Bhiwandi has six lakh power looms out of the total nine lakh units in Maharashtra and 18 lakh units in India,'' said M. Y. Momin, who is President of the Bhiwandi Powerloom Weavers Federation and the Powerloom Development and Export Promotion Council.

Powerlooms worst hit

"The average loss per day for one lakh powerlooms is Rs. 6-7 crores so the figures are easy to compute. The option of using DG sets for us does not exist because it is far too expensive. The plight of the industry must be understood from the standpoint of textiles being India's competitive strength particularly after the new WTO regime. How can we even think of competing?''

The Chairman, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Maharashtra State Council, Banmali Agrawala, felt that it was regrettable that at a time when the economy was growing, industry had to face such acute power shortage. "Industries are suffering production losses, increased cost and failing on deliveries which would affect sustained business flow," he said.

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