Tea industry in Assam wants exemption of power duty on 500 Kilo volt (KV) of gensets

GUWAHATI: Tea industry wants Assam chief minister to exempt the tea estates using 500 Kilo volt (KV) of gensets from paying power duty.

Power generated from gensets in the tea estates are levied 10 paise duty per unit. Tea estates get 30 percent power from grids and rest 70 percent is generated from self installed gensets.

Bidyananda Barkakoty, Chairman, North Eastern Tea Association (NETA) said tea industry is one of the prime revenue contributor for the power sector in the state. "We have asked the chief minister to have a re look and allow exemption of power duty for 500KV gensets."

He said that, "We are happy with the State Budget VAT on Gensets is reduced from 13.5 percent to 5 percent. Though we get 30 percent of power from electricity but we have to pay a fixed charge, which is very high. The gensets used in tea factories are all above 200 KVA".