Tamil Nadu Electricity Minister V. Senthilbalaji on Friday said 2.38 lakh tonnes of coal were missing from Tangedco’s North Chennai Thermal Power Station (NCTPS) at Athipattu in Tiruvallur district.
After a meeting with officials at the power station, Mr. Senthilbalaji told reporters that an initial investigation had revealed that 2.38 lakh tonnes of coal were present in the books, but the actual coal was missing. The total value of the coal was ₹85 crore, he said.
“If 5 tonnes or 10 tonnes of coal is missing, it is understandable. But 2.38 lakh tonnes are missing, though it is there in the records. Further investigation will be done and we will find out how it went missing and action will be taken against the guilty. Every step of the process will be investigated to find out how so much coal went missing,” Mr. Senthilbalaji said.
Similar investigations are taking place at the power plants at Thoothukudi and Mettur and an initial report will be ready soon, he added.
Accusing the erstwhile AIADMK regime of mismanagement, the Minister said Tangedco had good officers whose work was going down the drain due to this type of activity by a few. “Whoever has done wrong, we will find them out and they will be punished,” he asserted.
According to him, the DMK government would be transparent about every aspect and with regard to the Electricity Department, all information including the maintenance power cut schedule was being made available online.
He said the previous AIADMK government had not done any power station related maintenanc works in the last nine months of its tenure. “In fact, the officers here [NCTPS] told me that no equipment for maintenance had been purchased in the last three years,” he said.
The Minister said the Department has identified, in all 234 constituencies, transformers that have issues of high or low voltage. “We have started work to replace 8,900 transformers that have such issues at a cost of ₹625 crore. The work will be completed in three months,” he said.
Mr Senthilbalaji that the customer care cell, ‘Minnagam’ had received 2.48 lakh complaints of which 2.36 lakh had been resolved. The remaining were being processed and would be resolved soon.
