COIMBATORE: The Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Coimbatore, has urged the Central government to establish a permanent bench of the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity in Chennai.
“At present we are forced to go to New Delhi for all our appeals at great cost. We therefore request that a bench of the tribunal be established at Chennai,” ICCI president D Nandakumar said in a memorandum to Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman.
The ICCI demanded that work on connecting the western power grid to the southern grid be completed soon and that work on connecting the eastern grid taken up immediately and completed in 2015 itself.
The lack of connection to the national grid prevents TN from accessing power from regions except the South when it faces shortages, the memorandum pointed out.
It also urged the Centre to develop a National Investment and Manufacturing Zone in Coimbatore.
It should have state-of-the-art infrastructure, clean and energy-efficient technology, skill development facilities and necessary social infrastructure to provide a productive environment to those transitioning from the primary sector to the secondary and tertiary sectors, ICCI said.
An integrated logistics facility for road, rail and air freight is needed to raise the region's competitiveness, it said. Being at one end of the country, transport costs of both raw materials and finished goods are very high. An integrated facility will enable businesses to minimise transport and storage costs and promote exports.
Another demand is the extension of the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme to the engineering industry.
Nandakumar pointed out that Tamil Nadu had attained international competitiveness in for textiles and light engineering. These industries have made impressive exports in the last decade. Their needs have been repeatedly placed before the government. In particular, export incentives and interest subsidy for them need to be improved. The increase in fuels costs hurts their industries’ competitiveness. To overcome this problem, ways to limit this impact needs to be found, he said in the memorandum.