Srinagar, May 16: Federation Chamber of Industries Kashmir (FCIK) has J&K government’s intervention to freeze the plans for power tariff hike for industrial units of Kashmir.
FCIK President Shahid Kamili in a statement to Ziraat Times said that ‘unit holders are trying hard to put their units back in track after so many years. The tariff hike move will prove detrimental to the interests of Kashmir Industry,’
“The seriousness of the Government to see revival of industries in Kashmir and power tariff hike don’t go well together. It is like putting brakes on the joint revival efforts of the Govt and unit holders,” he said.
FCIK has sought intervention of Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, Chief Secretary A K Mehta, additional Chief Secretary Industries, and Principal Secretary Power in securing the interests of the Kashmiri industry. “We demand the role of LG, CS and PS to LG in taking concrete steps for revival of industry. We seek their intervention in freezing the plans of KPDCL to hike the power tariff of unit holders,” President Kamili said.
FCIK Secretary General Ovees Qadir Jamie said that the KPDCL failure to cover Tranmission & Distribution losses has been burdened now to the consumers. The last three years the transmission losses were 50 to 52% as per the petition, and which are projected at 43.77% for the FY 2022-23. “As the petition has an increase in demand charges & consumption charges for Industrial sector to the unacceptable levels and is touching up to 40% in some Industrial consumption categories which the highest among tariff category as per petition submitted to JERC”, FCIK added.
