Electricity Minister V. Senthilbalaji on Tuesday told the Assembly that there was a need to do maintenance work at power utilities as it was not carried out in the last nine months and the disruption in power supply would end in 10 days.
He said repair of pillars and transformers, insulators and lines damaged by tree branches had to be carried out. He said maintenance work had not been done even in former Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam’s Theni district.
The Minister said Tangedco’s debt was ₹2.42 lakh crore and it was paying ₹13,000 crore as interest. “Now as per the direction of our Chief Minister, we are holding talks with banks and we would get a rebate of ₹2,000 crore,” he said while responding to Pollachi V. Jayaraman (AIADMK).
Mr. Senthilbalaji rejected the claim of the AIADMK that it made Tamil Nadu a power-surplus State, saying if it was so why was Tangedco not providing electricity connection to waiting farmers. “The AIADMK government purchased power from private operators to achieve the surplus,” he said.
The Minister said the confusion in paying electricity tariff had been sorted out, and so far 11,40,000 consumers had paid.
