More than 75 hard coke factory owners of the coal belt have written to the Centre against DVC, accusing the power utility of arm-twisting industrial consumers by resorting to prolonged power cuts in the name of recovering dues.

On Thursday, their representative outfit, the Industries and Commerce Association, wrote to the Union Minister of State (independent charge) of Power, New and Renewable Energy, Raj Kumar Singh, pointing out that the regular power outage being resorted to by DVC was affecting industrial production and leading to massive financial losses.

The chief of the association B.N. Singh equated the power cuts carried out by DVC to the behavior of a traditional money lender who uses threats to recover money. “This is highly unbecoming of a corporation which is supposed to be a model organisation,” said Singh in his letter.

He added that resorting to power cuts puts all kinds of hardships on residents of Jharkhand who were also a part and parcel of the country, enjoying the same rights as that of people in other states.

“The same applies to industrial units and corporations in the state for whom long hours of power cuts cause massive disruption in the production process which ultimately affects economic development and growth of India,” said Singh.

Objecting over the techniques being used by DVC against Jharkhand, where majority of its units are situated, Singh said, “Damodar Valley Corporation runs with coal from Jharkhand in a big way and its production unit is also based here. It is highly illogical that if a state government is not able to pay the dues of another government-owned company, the people of the state are made to suffer on this pretext.”

“It seems as if Damodar Valley Corporation is an entity that is independent of any control and can do anything it wants,” Singh said in his letter, adding that there are more civilised ways of recovering dues from a state, rather than resorting to arm twisting and threats that are usually done by unlawful elements.

“The association seeks your intervention at the earliest at to take up the matter with Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) as well as the state government and sort out the problems amicably by arbitrating under the ambit of law rather than threatening a duly elected state government and punishing the people of the state who are caught in the crossfire,” Singh said in his letter.

Speaking to The Telegraph Online on Thursday, Singh added, “At a time when hard coke factories are already passing through a difficult phase due to recession caused by the pandemic and lack of sufficient supply of quality coal by Coal India, long hours of power cuts will further affect our future.”