GUWAHATI, June 3 � The North Eastern Small Scale Industries Association (NESSIA) has expressed grave concern over the proposal of the Assam Power Distribution Company Ltd (APDCL) for hiking power tariff for all categories of consumers to meet additional revenue requirements for the financial year 2015-16.
NESSIA State president Sailen Baruah at a meeting of MSME entrepreneurs, said that the APDCL proposal was unjustified and urged the Assam Electricity Regulatory Commission (AERC) to scrap the proposal.
�Any further increase in power tariff will sound the death knell for the micro sector and small industries having connecting load up to 50 KVA in the State. For the domestic sector up to 5 KVA load, the APDCL has proposed Rs 50 per KW per month as fixed charge on connected load against the existing Rs 30, which is quite high. Accordingly, on fixed charge industries up to 50 KVA connection, the hike from Rs 40 to Rs 60 per KW/month would adversely affect the functioning of small industries. The industries with connected load up to 50 KVA now paying Rs 2,000 per month on fixed charge will have to pay Rs 3,000 per month on fixed charge,� the NESSIA said in a statement.
Pointing out that a majority of the industries in the State belonged to the small-scale sector covering connected load up to the range of 50 KVA, the NESSIA said that as per data 19,625 consumers were in the small industry sector under APDCL.
�The activities of those industries in general are limited to day hours only between 8 am and 5 pm and therefore they utilise power from APDCL for eight hours in day hours only. Besides, due to peak-load hour restrictions, holidays, weekly rest and other factors, small industries up to 50 KVA load hardly utilise power for 22 days a month on an eight-hour activity, but industries are paying fixed charge on actual connected load without utilising fully the power,� it added.
