The Southern India Mills’ Association through its Chairman M. Senthil Kumar has put forth an argument that as the price of the fuels for power generation has come down; the power tariff should be reduced.

The State is now having surplus power which is available under open access at a lower cost too. Thus, the SIMA, representing textile mills in the state, has asked the State Government to reduce power tariff for high tension consumers, and consider separate tariff for textile industry.

Association chairman M. Senthil Kumar said that coal price has reduced from Rs. 3,591 a tonne to Rs. 5,399 in the last couple of years. Furnace oil price, excluding Value Added Tax, has also come down from Rs. 39.55 a litre to Rs. 17.81 and that of HSD (High Speed Diesel) oil has declined to Rs. 36.25 a litre from Rs. 51.70 a litre.

But the power consumption has increased by 33 per cent in the last five years. Tamil Nadu should be able to meet the future power demand and continue producing power to meet this requirement. It can enable the industries here to be competitive only if power is available at lower cost.

SIMA is the single largest employers’ organisation representing the organised textile industry in the world and the only employers’ organisation of the textile industry having in-house expertise to advice right from designing the textile project to marketing.

This has enabled the Association to constantly play a lead role in all the textile policy making bodies of Central Government and State Governments in South India including Planning Commission work group relating to textiles. SIMA is given representation in all the policy making committees of Central and State Government Departments and various other statutory bodies.