No daily power cuts for SSIs from January 1

HYDERABAD: As a new year gift, Small-scale industries will be exempted from daily power cuts from January 1. The state government has also decided to reduce the number of power holidays for SSIs from two to one per week with effect from December 19.  Minister for small-scale industry P Shankar Rao told reporters here on Tuesday that due to power cuts, small-scale  industries and their staff were suffering. There were over 6 lakh small units in the state and over one crore employees working for them. On a representation made by the Small  Industries Association and Employees, Rao said, he had took up their grievance with chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. After taking into consideration their plight, the government decided to provide power supply to small-scale industries continuously for all seven days of the week.  AP Genco managing director Ajay Jain said rain deficit, dry spell and drought dented power production while the  demand went up. This year, the power demand is 247 million watts, much more than last year’s 187 million watts. It was a 31 pc increase, he said. Compounding the problem is the dip in the supply of natural gas to gas-based power units in the state. The supply, which was 52 million units, dwindled to 35 million units, he said and added that gas suppliers attributed the disruption in supplies to some technical problem. The hydel generation also got hit due to low water levels in the reservoirs.Jain said they would be able to overcome the power shortage to some extent by December 18 when the  NTPC’s Simhadri  thermal power plant near Vizag and the Kakatiya thermal plant at Bhupalapalli in Karimnagar district would resume production.Federation of AP Small Industries Association president V Hanumantha Rao thanked the government for the move that would help SSIs.