Chennai: Two days after Electricity Minister Senthil Balaji refuted opposition charges and gave an assurance in the Assembly that there would not be power cuts in Tamilnadu, many parts of the State faced electricity outages last night.
Especially, towns and villages in Tiruchi, Cuddalore, Villupuram and other districts faced power cuts. Even as people, who are already facing the heat from the summer temperature, suffered due to the electricity outage, Senthil Balaji blamed the Union government.
‘There was disruption in 750 MW electricity supplied from the Central grid to southern States. Following this, the shortage was met by increased production and purchase from private companies,’ he said.
The Minister added: ‘While the situation was set right in urban areas immediately, the issue was addressed in rural parts in 15 minutes.’
Srinath from Srirangam said there was no power for more than an hour. Same was sounded from other districts too.
Tamilnadu is set to purchase power to the tune of 6000 MW to overcome the shortage in the months of April and May.
Quoting sources in Tamilnadu Generation and Distribution Company (TANGEDCO), reports said that an agreement has been made with power suppliers to purchase 3047 MW for the month of April and 3007 MW for the month of May respectively.
Other than power vendors, TANGEDCO has also approached the public sector, Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) to buy power. It is said the Electricity department has communicated to the NLC to provide 1500 MW of power to it if requirements arise.
Meanwhile, nearly 12 years after Tamilnadu issued a government order to reform the power sector, plans are afoot now for a giant recast. Though TANGEDCO and TANTRANSCO were created in November 2010 by splitting the erstwhile Electricity Board, the sector continued to be under generous political patronage.