New Delhi: Noting that Indian companies are suffering production shortfall due to powers cuts, a study by Ficci Sunday suggested a 10-point policy package to provide affordable and quality electricity to industrial consumers.
Recommendations of the Ficci-BRIEF study titled ‘Lack Of Affordable and Quality Power: Shackling India’s Growth Story’ include ensuring communication to load dispatch centre, extensive review and audit of the protection systems and implementation of smart grids.
Of the 650 firms surveyed, "61 percent of the firms suffer above 10 percent shortfall in production due to power cuts while 13 percent suffer 2-5 percent shortfall and the remaining 12 percent suffer 6-10 percent shortfall".
The survey was conducted over the last three months covering large, medium and small industries in 20 states.
Almost two-thirds of the firms feel that because of the power shortage and intermittent supply, they are losing to their international competitors in international markets, it said.
"Firms are facing cost escalation, losses in revenue, increased consumption of fuel, increased investment in captive facilities, higher inventory costs and loss in competitiveness," the report said.
According to the survey, firms in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka are facing less than one hour of power shortage in a week, but at the same time companies in states like Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh are suffering electricity shortage for more than 30 hours per week.
It said that the revenue losses due to power cut range between less than Rs 1,000 to above Rs 40,000 per firm.
In states like Gujarat, Karnataka and Maharashtra, the majority lose less than Rs 1,000 per firm implying that if the power scenario in the other states is made to mimic the scenarios in these three states, revenue losses can be brought down to as low as Rs 1,000 per firm, it added.
According to the report, companies in Gujarat, Maharashtra
and Karnataka incur low losses as power shortages in these states are negligible.
The other suggestions of the survey include widespread information regarding load-shedding, grant of open access option to the consumers, encouragement of use of alternate sources of power generation, incentivisation of green building and strict laws and penalties for power theft.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, January 13, 2013, 13:13