In a strongly worded letter to the Chief Minister, with copies to Power Minister Kaushik Patel and Industries Minister Suresh Mehta, FGI president Amit Goradia says, ``we were shocked and stunned'' to find that the duty on power generated by industrial units in emergencies has been hiked from 10 paise to 40 paise. For co-generation plants the hike is from 3 to 20 paise, meaning a hefty 400 to 600 per cent hike.

Goradia states that industrial units had installed diesel generating sets because of the ``inadequate and undependable'' power supply of the Gujarat Electricity Board. Industries have had to invest a lot of capital to generate power and bear the maintenance and running costs.

Diesel power becomes expensive for industry as these power sets are considered as stand-by units and don't run continuously to meet the power needs of the industry, the letter says.