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The Confederation of Indian Industry welcomed the Tamil Nadu Government’s proposal to allow third party sale of power and requested the Government to ensure power supply at reasonable cost. The press release CII at Chennai dated 13-11-2008 said that power from private power producers would be available only at high prices and will have an adverse impact on industrial growth. "To sustain manufacturing sector the State Government has to make available power at reasonable cost.". CII said.

On 08-11-2008, Tamil Nadu government  took a major policy decision to introduce an "open access scheme," which will enable private producers to sell power to any buyer at rates of their choice without cross subsidy surcharge to tide over the power shortage. Until now, surplus electricity generated by private power plants had to be sold to the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB), and the sellers were not allowed to fix the tariff.

Conceding a long-pending demand of industrialists to relax the norm as prescribed in the Electricity Act, a meeting, chaired by chief minister M Karunanidhi, decided to open up the market. However, the sale is restricted to buyers within the state. Private power plants cannot sell excess capacity outside the state. And those who have entered into power purchase agreement with the TNEB have to continue to sell power to the board.

CII requested the Government has to utilise the furnace oil and diesel-fuelled captive power available with the industry to generate at least 1,500 MW of additional power. It will have to come out with a support policy for the additional cost of power from captive power facilities. This would support the small and medium enterprises that cannot afford to avail of the third party sale of power. The CII also welcomed the proposal to provide incentives for new generation capacity, facilitating merchant power project proposals and the waiver of the cross subsidy surcharge on third party sale.