Bringing good news to TN people, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Friday announced reduction in the duration of load-shedding for domestic consumers and lifting of power holiday for High Tension and Low Tension industries besides the compulsory power holiday for industries, from Saturday.
“The power holiday for HT and LT industries and the compulsory power holiday for industries on Sundays will be lifted from June 2. Besides, the load-shedding duration for the domestic consumers in Chennai will be reduced from two hours to one hour, while the duration will be reduced from four hours to three hours in other parts of the State”, the CM said after chairing a meeting with top officials to review the power situation, at the Secretariat here.
The CM said that due to substantial increase in the power generated by windmills during the past few weeks and the resumption of full 840 MW generation at the Mettur Thermal Power Station on Friday, the power position in Tamil Nadu has improved significantly. The Mettur Thermal Power Station, which was gutted by a fire on May 10, started generating its full capacity on Friday, due to measures taken on a war-footing.
Jayalalithaa added that load-shedding would be further relaxed next month since many thermal power projects and the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) would start power generation soon. The situation would be reviewed next month and appropriate decisions would be made.
On February 4, the Chief Minister had announced in the State Assembly that Tamil Nadu would be getting an additional 2,550 MW of power by October this year — 1,950 MW by June and 600 MW by October, through various projects.
The CM said the North Chennai Thermal Power Extension Project-I (600 MW) would start generation in June this year. The second unit of the North Chennai Thermal Power Extension Project (600 MW) would be operationalised from October this year. The Vallur thermal power project (500 MW), a joint venture of NTPC and the TNEB, was expedited after the AIADMK government assumed office. The second unit of the Vallur project, due to the expeditious steps taken by the government, would be commissioned in June this year.
Electricity Minister R Viswanathan, Chief Secretary Debendranath Sarangi, Energy Secretary Ramesh Kumar Khanna, TNEB Chairman Rajeev Ranjan and other top officials took part in the meeting.