Bangalore: Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce (BCIC) on Friday expressed concern over the continuing scheduled and unscheduled power cuts in Karnataka and urged the State Government to immediately take steps to mitigate energy crisis faced by the industry.
Smt. Pankajam Sridevi, President, BCIC said: “The scheduled and unscheduled load shedding in and around the Industrial Corridors of Bangalore is bound to severely hurt the manufacturing sector the most as it is struggling to keep its ‘continuous process industries’ production schedules intact and also honour export commitments especially the Garment industry. Power cuts will bring further agony to the industry which is already facing downturn due to flat economic growth over the last two quarters.”
Smt. Pankajam Sridevi further added that the “problems faced by the industry could be mitigated by initiating a mix of strategy of improving power generation efficiency, reducing transmission and distributions losses from a high of 19 Percent to single digit and look at procuring additional power from power grids”. This year the monsoon has been generous and the State Government should look at optimal utilisation of Hydel power generation also.
Mr. Kishore Alva, Senior Vice President, BCIC said that the Chamber has been interacting with various Energy-related government Departments over the power crisis. He urged the Government to undertake a long-term action plan to mitigate the constant power shortage faced in the state government which is affecting normal growth in demand and supply of goods and services.
BCIC has come out with the following recommendations as a roadmap to manage power crisis:
Short Term Actions
* Repeated failures at Raichur & Bellary needs immediate attention and proper maintenances should be carried out to improve availability of power
* Reduce AT & C (Transmission and Commercial) loss from 19% to 10% gradually over a period of 3-4 years (at least 2-3% reduction per year).
Long/Medium Term Actions
*Accelerated Renewable Energy addition. Policy to ensure that once projects are allocated / approved, the same should be developed in a time bound manner or else lead to cancellation
*Make the RE policy more attractive
*Amend Karnataka Land Act so that there can be rental lease agreement with land owner for wind projects; farming can continue in the balance land as well as revenue generation for farmer
*Strict implementation of Renewable Power Obligation, “RPO” (Solar and Non Solar)
*Separate feeder for agriculture sector and Measure consumption
BCIC strongly recommends that the State Government should immediately increase the short-term purchase as an immediate measure to ensure that the scheduled load shedding hours can be reduced or curtailed. BCIC appeals to the State Government in expediting privatization of distribution would have provided a fillip to the State which had pioneered the unbundling power sector by separating generation.
