For power-starved Tamil Nadu, there's finally light at the end of the tunnel. In a major development over the New Year, the southern grid was connected to the National Grid and the move comes as a huge relief for the state's traditional industry clusters.
The one nation - one grid - one frequency system became a reality this New Year with the Raichur-Sholapur single circuit transmission line getting interconnected to the National Grid. For Tamil Nadu's SME textile and Leather industries, who have seen costs spiral due to lack of power, this is welcome news.
“Going forward, we have the North South grid connection already a reality and they say within a month or two it can become fully operational. That would give us a huge relief. That is the relief we are looking for because we don't think any magic will happen and power plants will come in Tamil Nadu overnight,” Manickam Ramaswami, CMD, Loyal Textile Mills said.
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Once fully operational, not only will the new transmission line bring the lifeline power to the southern region, it will also a create a positive ripple effect on the input side, bringing operational costs down, a development that's inspired the leather industry to aim for an 18 percent growth rate this year.
M Rafeeque Ahmed, Chairman, Council for Leather Exports said, “'The Raichur Shollapur transmission line is going to help a lot. It's purely demand and supply. There will be more power available. That will also help the price of power to come down. Before there were small quantities of power available and the prices were higher. If supply chain comes up, production will go up and there won’t be any break up of power and hence cost of production will come down thus generating more employment.”
Once the the Koodankulam Plant starts supplying power to them as well, industry members hope Tamil Nadu's dark days will soon be over.
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