Curb corruption in electricity procurement to turn TANGEDCO profitable: Anbumani

CHENNAI: PMK president Anbumani claimed on Friday that if the DMK government had curbed the corruption in the electricity department, the TANGEDCO would have started functioning profitably.

While leading a protest by party cadre near the Rajarathinam Stadium in the city to demand a rollback of the recent power tariff hike, the opposition leader said that the people of the state were put to hardship by the state government which hiked the power tariff by 33.7% cumulatively over the past 23 months.

"Through the tariff hike, TANGEDCO has earned an additional revenue of Rs 40,000 crore. Even after the additional revenue, the state government's claim that the utility is running under losses is unacceptable. The main reason for such losses is corruption," he remarked.

Alleging corruption in purchasing high-cost power from private companies, Anbumani said that the state-owned thermal power stations generate a unit of energy at Rs 3.40 while the utility procures the same from private generators at Rs 12 per unit.

"There is a deliberate plan to procure energy from the private companies for corruption by way of taking a commission. If the corruption is curbed, the utility will be profitable," he said.

The PMK leader said that the ruling party had failed to implement the monthly billing system for electricity charges, which it had promised to do in its election manifesto.

"We have conducted a token protest demanding the rollback of the tariff hike. Soon, our party cadre, along with the people, will hold massive protests across the state," he said.

The PMK leader added that 85 per cent of the small and medium industries were the worst affected due to the recent power tariff hike.