Despite industrialists opting for the ‘continuous’ power supply option, unscheduled and long hours of power cuts continued to affect the industries.
The entrepreneurs here said that it has adversely hit the industrial growth in the mountain State. Therefore, the industrialists have urged the State Government to emphasised upon the Uttarakhand Power Corporation limited (UPCl) and asked them to refrain from taking any ‘arbitrary’ steps like imposition of unscheduled load shedding on the industries despite opting for ‘continuous’ power supply option by the industrialists.
UPCl continued to conduct unscheduled load shedding and that too for long hours despite industrialists going for ‘continuous’ power supply option, which has discouraged them to great extend by affecting at their growth, alleged Madan Mohan Jindal, an industrialist and former president of the Kumaon Garhwal Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “We are of the view that at least the industry officials concerned must be informed in advance about the imposition of load shedding.
Otherwise the matter of concern is that industrialists have to bear the heavy losses due to the unscheduled and long hours of power cuts, that too without any prior notice . Therefore, we urge the State Government that it takes steps to ensure smooth supply of power in the industrial sector”, said Jindal.
It is worth mention here that keeping in view the concerns of the industrialists and people at large, the State Government earlier directed the UPCl to put all the vital information in regard to the load shedding and particularly about the areas where the load shedding has to be done, with time and duration on its website: www.upcl.org .
Interestingly, though following the Government’s order, the officials concerned of the UPCl has started putting all the aforesaid information concerning public on its website: www.upcl.org. But later it stopped doing so, defying the Government’s direction in this regard. Surprisingly, the officials concerned of the UPCl presently upload information on the UPCl website that too about availability of power and demand for the same, not about the load shedding on weekly basis. And even on Friday, the website has been updated with the availability and demand for power of December 29, 2013.
This is the reason why the common citizens and industrialists demanded the officials concerned of the UPCl to provide information on its website in advance and name of the areas which are going to be affected by the power cuts for how many hours. So far the officials concerned of the UPCl have only turned a deaf ear to the demands. And the unscheduled power cuts continue to hit normal life and the industrial sector here as well.