Over 1,500 small and tiny industries downed their shutters in and around Hosur on Wednesday demanding equitable and uniform power distribution across the State.
Sources in the Hosur Small and Tiny Industries Association (HOSTIA) told The Hindu that the permission sought for demonstration and rally was turned down by the police.
Hence, over 50 members of HOSTIA, led by its president K. Ramalingam, met the Sub-Collector, Praveen P. Nair, at Hosur and submitted a memorandum for equitable power supply across the State.
In its memorandum, HOSTIA welcomed the government’s efforts to improve the power generation capacity, purchase power from other States and also schemes announced to tap solar power through special sops for encouraging the industries and households to go for solar power.
In spite of several efforts taken by the government to mitigate the power shortage, the domestic and industrial consumers in rural areas continue to be the sufferers when compared to their counterparts in the urban areas like state capital and its surrounding areas.
The Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) is implementing power cut about 12 hours in rural areas, whereas the urban counterparts are enjoying uninterrupted power supply for 22 hours per day. Power is being shut down in the district on regular intervals and only 12-hour power supply is ensured by the Corporation. Because of the erratic power shutdown, the small and tiny industries are not in a position to plan their manufacturing schedules, as most of the units are the small vendors for the big automotive industries such as Ashok Leyland and TVS Motors in Hosur.
The frequent power cut affects production very badly. It has forced many industries to close down their units as they couldn’t run their units with meagre power availability. The overall operations of the small and tiny industries has turned from bad to worse.
Besides this, lakhs of employees who migrated to Hosur for employment are on the verge of losing their jobs due to reduction in production. Hence, it is high time that they take the issue to the knowledge of the Chief Minister and implement equitable power distribution on a par with Chennai and its neighbourhood areas, the memorandum says.
