Concerned with unscheduled power cuts and that too for long hours to the industries in SIIDCUl, the industrialists have demanded smooth and uninterrupted power supply to the industries.
“In the absence of adequate power supply, we can’t expect better industrial growth. Rather, the unscheduled load shedding to the industries have only affected the industrial output,” said Ashok Bansal, senior vice- president of the Kumaon Garhwal Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KGCCI), urging the State power department to ensure smooth supply of the power to the industries.
“On account of daily unscheduled load shedding the industries have not been able to perform upto their capacity resulting in adverse industrial output,” Bansal said.
The matter of fact is that in the absence of no advance information about load shedding, the entrepreneurs become unable to arrange alternative energy options which only worsens the industrial development, he added.
Keeping in view these concerns we have been continuously demanding from the Government to ensure uninterrupted power supply, but the power situation remains same, regretted the industrialists.
Bansal further said that in view of increasing load on the power sub-station in Rudrapur’s Danpur area, the officials concerned had assured to increase the capacity of this power sub-station, but nothing has been done so far.
More so, he allegedly said, on account of poor maintenance of a power sub –station at Sitarganj , power supply to the industries located in that area has been very poor. And due to similar problem of poor maintenance of the area power sub-station, industries located in Rudrapur’s sector-9 have also been affected badly. That is why we have urged the officials concerned of the power department that there should uninterrupted power supply to the industries but of no use, the industrialists further said.
Besides, entrepreneurs have also raised the issue of poor-utilisation of the power that they purchase under the open access scheme. They are of the view that due to faulty power sub –stations most of the time the power purchased under the open access schemes remain unutilised.
But the industrialists have to make full payment. Therefore, the Uttarakhand Power Corporation limited (UPCl) must make some provisions to return the amount of the unutilised power, Bansal said.
It is worth mention here that with atmospheric temperature continuously looking up, power situation is likely to remain grim both in domestic and industrial sectors in coming days ahead this summer season. Farmers are not less worried particularly in terai- bhawar area of Uttarakhand as farming is the mainstay of a majority of the people in this belt.