The Hindu Business Line : Power tariff hike upsets Indal re-opening plans

RE-OPENING of the Aditya Birla Group's Indian Aluminium Industries (Indal) unit at nearby Eloor has become uncertain as the Power Trading Corporation is said to have increased its power tariff.

Senior official sources told Business Line on Saturday that the PTC had agreed to supply power at Rs 2.50 per unit some eight months ago, based on which the company had sought permission from the Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission (KSERC) to draw power from the PTC.

But now the corporation had "made some changes in its power tariff. At that point of time we were not able to enter in to a contract with it," they said. "Now we are in discussions with the PTC and hope to reach some settlement."

Besides, wheeling charges of 42.5 paise per unit to be paid to the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) for drawing power from PTC is also on the higher side. The company is hoping to make some arrangements on this issue also, they said.

Meanwhile, the trade unions were demanding the re-opening of the smelter unit but it would "depend on running the unit viably," they said. Electricity is the main raw material and its availability at affordable rates alone could make the unit viable, they argued.

Indal has been functioning in the State since 1943 and power is the major raw material of this plant with a monthly consumption of 20 million units, which constituted 61 per cent of the cost of production, they said.

Prior to August 2001, the company was paying Rs 4.5 crore towards power charges per month and it had increased to 6.75 crore now following the two hikes thereafter in power tariff introduced by the State Electricity Board. At this rate the unit cannot be run profitably, they claimed.

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