The Coimbatore Tirupur District Micro and Cottage Entrepreneurs' Association has appealed to the State Government to increase electricity generation in the State.
Association president S. Ravikumar said in a release that since 2007 the State had been suffering from power shortage and power cut was implemented according to the availability. During the last three years, the micro and cottage units in the two districts had lost about Rs. 1,500 crore worth production because of the power problem. The two districts had about 30,000 units that employed nearly four lakh people.
With increase in wind energy generation, the Government recently reduced the load shedding duration to two hours a day from three hours. However, unscheduled power cuts had gone up again as there was a drop in wind energy generation during the last few days.
The units were facing four to six hours of power cut a day. The workers were remaining idle in the industries, leading to huge production loss.
The Government should increase generation from thermal power station and hydel power rather than depending on wind energy and provide uninterrupted power supply to the industries.
Mr. Ravikumar added that though the Union Government had said that banks should extend collateral-free loan to the micro units, most of the banks were not implementing it. He appealed to the nationalised banks to extend collateral-free loan to these units.
