CHENNAI: Refuting allegations of discrepancies in the distribution of entry passes for the consecration of the Meenakshi Sundareswarar temple in Madurai, Minister for Law and Electricity C T R Nirmal Kumar on Friday said the opposition parties levelled the “baseless” claims against the TVK-led government, envious of the “smooth” conduct of Thursday’s ceremony.
Addressing media persons after chairing a review meeting with the electricity board’s engineers in Chennai, the minister denied having issued any passes to anyone for the temple consecration. He also said that none of his family members attended the event with his help.
On complaints of power outages across TN, the minister said they were due to technical issues. “In Punjab, people are facing regular power outages of nearly 14 hours as the state government has openly stated that it is not ready to procure power at higher prices. Kerala is also facing similar issues.
We, however, are procuring power from the open market and are ensuring uninterrupted supply.” Further, he said the number of complaints being received through Minnagam had increased this year. “To streamline the system, we are creating a common platform. Once it is launched, officials at the assistant engineer level will directly attend to consumer complaints,” he added.