In the industrial belt of Coimbatore and Tiruppur, the DMK and BJP have something in common. The governments led by the two parties in Tamil Nadu and at the Centre have earned the ire of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) for their policies that have hurt the sector badly in the past few years.
If MSMEs in Coimbatore, known as South India’s Manchester, and in Tiruppur, the country’s knitwear hub, are still reeling under the effects of the implementation of demonetization and introduction of GST by the Union Government, the DMK dispensation’s move to increase electricity tariff for commercial establishment only added to their woes.
In Coimbatore, associations representing MSMEs in several sectors say about 40 percent of businesses have closed in the past seven years with many entrepreneurs turning as labourers even as the teething issues in GST continue till day.
“We have been facing crisis after crisis since 2016 and things went downhill during Covid. It was when we were slowly recovering from the losses, the state government increased the electricity tariff. We couldn’t handle the shock because it came at a time when we were already affected due to Centre’s policies,” C Sivakumar of Coimbatore Tiruppur Districts Micro and Cottage Entrepreneurs Association, told DH.
‘Withdraw hike in fixed charges’
Though the peak hour charges have been put on “hold” by the state government after protests from several associations, Sivakumar said it is still a Damascus Sword hanging over the head of the MSMEs. Other demands like withdrawal of the hike in fixed charges and charging MSMEs with less than 12 KW under tariff III (A)(I) issued of III B haven’t been met so far.
“We want a rollback of the steep hike in the electricity tariff. If it is not rolled back, and peak hour charges we cannot run job units as usual,” Sivakumar added.
Read more at: Deccan Herald
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