Power Crisis: Industrial output down by 30 pc
Ruchika M. Khanna
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 27
Erratic power supply in Haryana and Punjab has brought the industrial production in the region to a grinding halt.

With the industry in the region getting just 24-30 hours of supply in a week (thanks to unscheduled power cuts and compulsory off days), industrial production is down by almost 30 per cent.

While industry in Haryana has been getting power for six-eight hours on alternate days, Punjab, which already had three compulsory weekly offs, has now started imposing long unscheduled cuts on industrial consumers.

On the day, when there has been no compulsory off in Punjab, industry has been getting just six to eight hours of supply a week. This has been adversely affecting the industrial production in the two states, besides, drastically bringing down the profit margins of the industry.

While the big industry has been relying heavily on captive power generation, they say that their power generation bills have shot up by almost 150 per cent.

A leading leather exporter in Jalandhar said his energy bill had been around Rs 7 lakh a month during the winter season. “Since, I have to run my unit on gensets by using diesel, my energy bill has shot up to Rs 16-17 lakh a month,” he rued.

Industrialists say that, on one hand the recession has begun to take its toll on their profit margins, on the other, the state governments have been doing little to ensure regular power supply. “We are facing a shortage in cash inflow and it was becoming difficult to shell out more money for running the units on captive power. Because of recession, our exports have been hit badly. Instead of helping us, the long and unscheduled power cuts ensure that we are unable to complete whatever little export orders we get,” said a handloom exporter in Panipat.

Parveen Goel, a businessman in Barwala (Panchkula), said though they were getting six bhours of supply on alternate days only, they still had to pay the minimum charges for power consumption. “We are not even getting the power supply for which we are being charged by the Haryana Power Utilities,” he lamented. According to information, several power surplus states like Gujarat and Chattisgarh, which had earlier signed power agreements with Punjab and Haryana to sell surplus power, have now cancelled the agreement because of the drought like conditions there. As a result, Haryana is facing a shortage of 100 lakh units a day, while Punjab has been facing a shortfall of 400 lakh units a day.

Official sources in the two states said in order to ensure regular water to the agriculture sector, they had been giving more priority to supplying power to paddy growers. A top official in Punjab said between June and September they have diverted 3,551 million units of power to the agriculture sector from industry and domestic consumers.