Tangedco trade union alleges material paucity to attend to faults

CHENNAI: Even as the TANGEDCO claim to have adequate men and materials to attend to power outages, the Central Organisation of Tamil Nadu Electricity Employees has raked up the issue of unavailability of materials to attend to faults and maintenance work and the field workers were forced to ask the consumers to pay for it.

In a letter to TANGEDCO Chennai Central Distribution Circle superintendent engineer, COTEE Central Chennai secretary S Kannan said that there are five divisions including the new created Chepauk in the Central distribution circle catering to about six lakh consumers.

“On daily basis, we will get complaints from Minnagam to attend to faults, maintenance of the distribution transformers, development works and pillar boxes maintenance. To attend such works, we need materials like 11 kV joint kits, 33 kV joint kits, LT joint kits, 240 joint kits, 120 joint kits, compound, 120 cable, stump bold, 240 leg and insulator but it was not available to the filed workers, ” the union alleged.

The union said that when the section officer seeks supply of such materials, the management asks them to procure it after taking a temporary advance. “If the officials took the temporary advance and procure such materials, they have to submit the bills along with the GST. If the price of a particular item has gone up in the market, TANGEDCO would accept only the rate at which it was procured through the tender previously. The balance amount to be borne by the section officer themselves, ” COTEE leader said, adding that the material shortage was prevalent across the state.

Kannan demanded that Superintendent Engineers should be given the power to procure materials through tender.

A senior TANGEDCO official dismissed the charges saying that the section officers could procure the materials by taking the temporary advance. “We cannot clear all the bills presented by the officials. The price of materials should not exceed the cost fixed by the TANGEDCO, ” the official added.