Minister concedes power outage, but utility’s data shows zero load shedding

CHENNAI: Electricity Minister V Senthilbalaji himself admitted to power shortage leading to load shedding in the rural parts of the State, but Tamil Nadu Transmission Corporation’s (Tantransco) daily statement shows “zero” load shedding for the past few days.

On Wednesday night, several parts of the state like Tiruvallur, Chengalpattu and Kancheepuram districts witnessed power outages that lasted from one to three hours. The Minister tweeted on April 20 night that a shortfall of about 750 MW from the central generation stations (CGS) on Wednesday led to the outage, and also gave a detailed reply in the Assembly on the unannounced load shedding.

But the load shedding column in the Tantransco daily statement claims “zero” between April 20 and 22. “Even after the Minister acknowledging load shedding, the daily statement showing the quantum of load shedding as zero raises the question of the power utility’s credibility,” said S Neelakantapillai, a retired Tangedco executive engineer.

The CGS short supply did not happen all of a sudden as the Minister stated, he said, adding that adding that Tangedco had failed to plan, leading to power shortage. But a senior Tangedco official said there was no attempt to hide the data. There was a shortage of more than 2,000 MW on Wednesday night, which led to load shedding. “The outage happened on Thursday and Friday as well. From Saturday, we were able to ensure uninterrupted supply due to increased generation from our thermal stations and widespread rainfall in the districts, bringing down the power demand,” the official said.