NEW DELHI: Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has proposed that power should be made available to chlor-alkali industry at internationally competitive price in budget 2013, considering the fact that it is a major input for the industry.

FICCI has recommended several suggestions in this regard as producers and manufacturers bear the brunt of high production cost.

“In order to increase the availability of coal for captive power plants at reasonable prices, coal mining should be opened to the private sector. Coal blocks should be allocated on priority basis to power intensive industries like Chlor-Alkali & Soda Ash through an independent regulatory mechanism,” it said.

To reduce the input costs, customs duty of 5 per cent on fuel oils should be abolished for imports by power intensive chlor-alkali industry.

Allocation and pricing of natural gas used by captive power units feeding power to caustic soda and soda ash units should be made available under the administrative price mechanism, FICCI added.

“As per Electricity Act 2003, the distribution companies are bound to provide network access to large industries that consume above 1 MW of power and regulators can fix the charges for such wheeling of power, but the state governments are not implementing this provision and they impose a huge cross subsidy charges on consumers buying from open market. This needs to be implemented by the government on priority basis so that wheeling of power is a reality,” it said in its pre-Budget memorandum.