IMC president Y P Trivedi, who chaired the meeting, announced Thane-Belapur Industries' Association (TBIA) president Dinesh Parekh and Reliance Industries Limited director M N Chaini would constitute the action panel. The panel would draw up strategy for immediate implementation.

Trivedi said though the average rate of power tariff hike appeared to be seven per cent, the actual incidence when enforced on a slab-wise basis was between 20 and 63 per cent in many cases.

The hike would render industries in Maharashtra uncompetitive both in the international market and even in India, he added.

"What is particularly galling is the recent decision to provide free electricity to agricultural sector with an eye on an impending elections. Certainly there is no justification at all for wholesale waiver of farmers' electricity bills without any regard totheir financial status," he said. Trivedi said the recent hike was clearly for cross subsidisation of the government's populist measures. "It will not only send wrong signals to the industry and ruin the state's economy, but render MSEB irretrievably sick, unfit for even privatisation in the days to come," he said.

He said industry's contribution to MSEB's total revenue stood at 82 per cent, the residential sector 12 per cent while the agricultural sector constituted only six per cent.

While the industry consumes 12856 million units and pays Rs 1,646 crore extra over the cost incurred by the MSEB, the agriculture sector consumes 13867 million units on which MSEB incurs a loss of Rs 2005 crore, he said.