PANAJI
With the start of March, ambiguity looms over the hospitality industry in the State, and the stakeholders are holding their breath, unable to predict what the policy this year would be regarding the supply of electricity during the peak summer season and if the Electricity Department would do ‘jugaad’ like last year to supply power to the industry at additional charges.
As is known, the State does not produce electricity, and it has to purchase it from other states to supply domestically. The hospitality industry is anxious to know if this year also the same policy would be adopted and they have to pay through their noses for the summer months of March, April and May which may be extended till June until the monsoon sets in.
The sources in the hospitality industry claim that though they had not put up the request to supply power at the hiked rate during the summers, they did pay the additional electricity charges last year. The manufacturing industry, pharmaceutical units require uninterrupted power supply, but the hotels, restaurants or event management companies have their own alternate arrangement for power. There are diesel generator sets that can supply power to the entire establishment for hours, during the power shut downs.
In a letter to the chief engineer of Goa Electricity Department, three industrial organisations, GCCI, GSIA and GPMA (Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Goa State Industries Association, Goa Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association) had requested to resolve the power crises in Goa, saying that since March 2022, industry was facing acute power shortage due to constant load restrictions - as much as 12 hours per day, imposed by the electricity department.
The industry had made representations with the government and met the power minister and other concerned officials. The industry was told that to address this power deficit, additional power had to be purchased by the government. However, as the rise in tariff in the IEX market had increased the cost substantially, the government was finding it difficult to bear this burden.
As far as the industry was concerned, due to the restrictions on load, the industry had to run their units on generators at a much higher cost. This also increases pollution and has a negative environmental impact.
Since power is a must for industry to function, GCCI, CII, GSIA and GPMA had proposed few short-term solutions: The cost of purchasing this additional power may be billed to all EHT and HT consumers in the State till June 30, 2022. Maximum burden as envisaged as per calculation worked out to be Rs 1.20/ kWh to be billed.
It was also suggested that any additional amount above Rs 1.20/kWh would be additionally borne by the industry (eg. Rs 1.20/kWh + additional amount if any).
The Goa Electricity Department would bill only for actual additional power purchased for this period for avoiding load shedding and no other charges will be charged to consumers. The industries had given their consent to bear the additional expenditure on account of purchase for the short term till June 2022 in the billing month of April, May and June of FY 2022-23.
This aimed as a solution to address the power issue so that the industries can run smoothly.
