CHENNAI: CHIEF Minister J Jayalalithaa on Wednesday asserted that Tamil Nadu was indeed a power surplus State and it was not an illusion as alleged by the DMK. She said the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) had categorically declared this fact in its Load Balance Generation Report.
Intervening the speech of P Ranganathan (DMK) in the State Assembly during the discussion on demands for grants for energy department, the Chief Minister said the DMK member had repeatedly said the State government was trying to create an illusion that Tamil Nadu was a power-surplus State.
“The DMK member claims that all the agreements which went against the State’s interest were signed during the previous DMK regime. But the DMK member speaks like a person who does not know how to play football and scores own goals,” she added.
The Chief Minister added that the daily average power supply, which was 200 million units (Mu), increased to 300 MUs in 2016. Also, Tamil Nadu met an all-time high peak demand of 15,343 MW and an all-time high energy consumption of 345.617 Mu on April 29, 2016. Further, the CEA categorically said that Tamil Nadu would be a power surplus State in 2016-17 with a surplus of 11,649 Mu. Jayalalithaa also said that during the previous DMK regime, the TNEB was ruined and the AIADMK during 2011-16 had set right all the wrongs done and made Tamil Nadu bright.
On another occasion, she said during the previous AIADMK regime in 2001-06, new power projects to generate 3,136 MW were started. The DMK, which came to power later, deliberately failed to complete them to fulfil their selfish motive — to purchase power at a higher price from private players.
But after the AIADMK came to power in 2011, all projects were expedited and additional power grids installed at Tamil Nadu’s request to draw power from others. In the past five years, additional power of 8,432.5 MW had been added to the grid by commissioning new power stations in State and Central sectors through medium and long term power purchase agreements and solar power.
“Today, the DMK’s efforts to level charges on various counts did not succeed because they are guilty of doing everything wrong while our government had marked only achievements. Since they are getting befitting replies from the Electricity Minister P Thangamani, I thought they would not remain in the House for long. They proved my guess right by walking out,” she added.