Nirani assures industry of reduced power woes

The industries, which are already facing demand crunch and depleting order books have repeatedly urged the government to look in to the matter of load-shedding and unscheduled power cuts during productive hours in the day, and come out with a credible action plan to address it.

In a move to address this issue, Nirani told Deccan Herald, that his ministry has already taken up the matter with the energy ministry and various authorities and will soon come out with the required action plan.  “We understand the the industry’s need for uninterrupted power supply, and I assure them that their concerns will be taken care of at the earliest,” he said. The industry has asked us for at least 20 hours of uninterrupted supply, to cater to this we have already began maintenance work at the Raichur Thermal plant — ignoring which has proven costly for us earlier, he said, adding that further to this we are planning a plant in Kolar to generate 4,000 MW of power. The project will be handled by NTPC with a target of making it functional in three years, he conceded.  State industries also demanded separate feeders for dedicated supply. Confirming acceptance of this proposal, he said “The minister for energy has been consulted on this the matter and that Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited (KPTCL) and Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) are ordered to conduct a survey separately to identify the number of transformers in the industrial areas, so that the conversion process can begin.” Assuring that the process of conversion would begin shortly, he said that the need for such separate feeders occur only in the Tier II and Tier III areas.