COIMBATORE: Members of the Tamil Nadu Industrial Electricity Consumers’ Federation, which comprises over 200 industry associations across Tamil Nadu, hoisted black flags in their industrial units and workers sported black shirts on Monday as part of a state-wide protest demanding rollback of the electricity tariff. Also, the owners of industrial units submitted a petition to the respective district collectors regarding the issue.
In Coimbatore, over 4,000 commercial units and establishments hoisted black flags in their facilities and around 200 functionaries of various industry associations, led by the coordinators of the Tamil Nadu Industrial Electricity Consumers’ Federation J James, M Jayabal, S Surulivel, Sahul Hameed, Mani Balachander, Suresh Sankaranayanan and Jayaraj Devakumar, submitted petition to the collector.
In Tiruppur, hundreds of MSME unit owners, including office bearers of associations like Tiruppur Exporters and Manufacturers Association (TEAMA), Tiruppur Export Knit Printers Association (TEKPA) and Tiruppur Knit Embroiders Associations, participated in the weekly grievance meeting at the collectorate wearing black shirts and submitted petitions to the collector. Around 700 individual petitions from MSME units were submitted seeking revision of the tariff of MSME units.
Madurai District Tiny & Small Scale Industries Association (MADITISSIA) president Lakshmi Narayana, past president A Selvaraj and TN Chamber of Commerce N Jegadeesan jointly petitioned the District Collector MS Sangeetha during the grievance redressal meeting on Monday. They demanded that Chief Minister MK Stalin should roll back fixed charges which had increased by up to 430% since September 19, 2022. They also demanded the CM to revoke peak hour charges and cancel the multi-year tariff. Further, they said small-scale industries running under 12w were changed to the 3A1 category, and said it had to be changed to the 3B category.
The industrialists from across the state will be staging a mass hunger strike in Chennai on October 16 to highlight their demands.
(With inputs from Tiruppur and Madurai)