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| Traders, industrialists demand roll back of power tariff hike in J&K | | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
Jammu, Nov 4: Terming the hike in power tariff as an “ill-conceived” and “unilateral” decision, industrialists and traders Friday demanded for “revisiting of the entire process and its underlying reasons with seriousness” so as to withdraw notification in this regard with immediate effect.
“We strongly oppose the arbitrary power tariff hike recommended by Power Development Department (PDD) and approved by J&K State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) which is not only highly unreasonable but also goes against the findings of the Commission,” Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) Jammu president Y V Sharma told reporters here.
Flanked by Federation of Industries Jammu (FOIJ) chairman Annil Suri and co-chairman T S Reen, the CCI leader alleged the observations of the State Electricity Regulatory Commission were virtually a “PDD charge sheet” in which the Commission had taken objection to the “inefficiency and failure” to check Transmission and Distribution (T& D) losses which have risen to the extent of 61 per cent.
The SERC had ordered an increase of 18 percent for government departments, 25 percent and 15 percent for PHE and Industry respectively, 20 per cent for bulk consumption, 10 per cent and 18 per cent for Agriculture and street lights respectively from October 1.
“The greatest travesty of justice is that the hike in the power tariff was announced on October 8, 2011 but it was given effect from October 1,” Sharma said.
He added prior to the announcement of the hike, the representatives of trade and industry had made it amply clear that there was “practically no pilferage and no outstanding balances in industrial sector which paid the full metered amounts without any hesitation”.
The FOIJ chairman said the T&D losses, which were 47.22 per cent at the time of establishment of the SERC, has increased to 61 per cent at present.
“It was resolved by the PDD that they would bring down T&D losses by 4 per cent annually. The hike in power tariff was a unilateral decision having no logic and justification. Some elements have hand in glove with PDD and are not allowing it for privatization,” he said.
Suri alleged the industrial sector had been penalized on account of failure of the PDD department due to non-recovery of RS 1300 crore from various government departments and not able to reduce the T&D losses.
“Due to steep hike in power tariff, the industrial units may opt for the closing of their units resulting further increase in the unemployment in the state,” he said.
The FOIJ co-chairman demanded for issuance of notification pending with labour department relating to increase in the exemption limit from 5 to 10 worker for Provident Fund Act and withdrawal of enhanced Stamp duty for registration of documents with financial institutions in respect of loan documents.
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