Replying in Assembly, Senthilbalaji blames Centre for power cuts

CHENNAI: Electricity Minister V Senthilbalaji on Friday blamed the outage in the central grid and short supply of coal for the power cut in Tamil Nadu.

“There were power cuts in only 41 places in the state and the reason was the outage of 796 MW from the central grid. Till date, we have not received the 796 MW but we have managed with the available coal supply,” said Senthilbalaji while replying to the urgent calling attention motion moved by AIADMK, PMK and Congress in the Assembly.

Introducing the motion, Leader of Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami said that while the peak power demand in the state is 17,100 MW only 13,110 MW is produced and while the coal demand is 72,000 metric tonnes per day only and 50,000 tonnes is supplied by the Centre. He also said that in summer more power will be consumed, but the state government failed to store sufficient quantity of coal. Due to shortage of coal, three units of Thoothukudi Thermal Power Station (TTPS) have been shut down resulting in loss of 630 MW on a daily basis.

PMK floor leader GK Mani said that the state government to meet the immediate power needs should go for additional purchase and for long term needs should increase the production capacity.

Congress floor leader K Selvaperunthagai said that due to coal shortage industrial growth is affected in 12 major states, including Tamil Nadu.

Senthilbalaji replied that to handle the shortage of power supply, the state government has decided to purchase 3,000 MW at much lower cost. He further said that to procure 4.8 lakh tonnes of coal four companies participated in the tender and the procurement rate of coal is fixed at 143 dollar per tonne of coal including GST.