TN Textile mills owners urge CM Stalin to withhold power tariff increase for two years

CHENNAI: The Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) have threatened to protest if the state government fails to roll back the increase in power tariff.

“Increase in power tariff by 4.83 per cent would cripple MSMEs from doing business. This hike has come at a time, when the industrial sector is already demanding for cancellation of demand charges hiked by 433 per cent.

Due to non-cancellation, we were forced to pay Rs 17,136 every month, even if not operating,” said M Jayabal, president of Recycle Textile Federation, in a statement on Wednesday.

Because of the power tariff hike, 3.36 lakh LTCT consumers and 2,600 companies belonging to the manufacturing sector that use high tension connections were dealt with a major blow. “If government fails to heed to our demands, then MSMEs will have no other option, but to resort to protests once again,” he added.

Similarly, the Southern India Mills Association (SIMA) has appealed to Chief Minister MK Stalin to withhold the power tariff hike for two years till the industry revives from recession caused by Covid-19 pandemic and ongoing wars among global nations.

“The textile industry began to lose its competitiveness, when the state started facing acute power shortage during 2008 to 2015. Thereafter, a constant hike in power tariff made the textile industry, especially the spinning sector uncompetitive. This led to lack of modernisation and over 70 per cent of the spinning capacity is more than 15 years old resulting in spinning mills incurring huge losses,” said SK Sundararaman, chairman of SIMA.

Tamil Nadu has around 2,500 spinning mills, including open end and small-scale units, providing jobs to over 60 lakh people directly in the state. “Under these circumstances, the power tariff hike from Rs 8.65 per unit to Rs 9.09 per unit for HT consumers will affect the entire industrial sector, especially the MSMEs,” he added.