The Southern India Mills Association (SIMA) has hailed announcement of the Tamil Nadu government to lift 20 per cent power cut and also remove 90 per cent evening peak hour restrictions.
In a statement, SIMA chairman T Rajkumar thanked the Tamil Nadu government for lifting power cuts and other restrictions which have been in force since 2008.
According to SIMA, the state has been facing severe power cut, 2008 onwards and that the power shortage has been threatening survival of power intensive sectors like textile industry.
Since the textile industry works round the clock, it was the worst affected manufacturing sector throwing several lakh of people jobless apart from several hundreds of units incurring heavy losses.
The SIMA chief said, "SIMA has been partnering with the government in taking proactive steps including issues relating to open access, power exchange power purchase systems, removal of VAT on furnace oil, etc."
Since the wind season is about to begin any time, SIMA had appealed to the government to lift the 20 per cent power cut and removal of evening peak hour restriction which is currently 90 per cent.
The government acceded to the plea by the Tamil Nadu textile industry by lifting all power cuts as well as other restrictions with effect from June 5, 2015.
The SIMA chairman stated that Tamil Nadu has the highest capacity of wind mills in the country to the extent of 7304 MW and the textile industry accounts for more than 50 per cent of these wind mills.
He added that the Tamil Nadu textile industry could sustain and compete with states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, etc., which have announced several incentives for textile industry mainly due to wind power.
Rajkumar again appealed to the chief minister to utilise wind power to the extent possible by planning preventive maintenance activities for all thermal power stations and fully the utilise green power.
