Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Saturday said she was monitoring the power situation directly and asserted that Tamil Nadu would regain the position of a power surplus state soon.
Listing the power generation schemes that would change the scenario, she said the works for the 1000 MW Vallur thermal plant which was commenced during the previous AIADMK government had been expedited.
The first unit of the plant would begin operations in July and the second in November, this year.
The third unit with a capacity of 500 MW would also be activated, she said. Campaigning for AIADMK candidate V R Karthick Thondaiman for the bypoll here, she said both the units of the North Chennai thermal plant with a capacity of 1,200 MW and the third thermal unit at Mettur with a capacity of 600 MW would also begin operations.
The Chief Minister said the works for the KKNPP would be completed soon and the first two units would go critical soon. Due to the schemes the deficit of 3,500 MW would be cleared and Tamil Nadu would become a state with no power cuts soon, she asserted.
As the windmills in the State have started generating more power during the last few weeks, the situation in the State had improved considerably, the Chief Minister said. Besides, the Mettur thermal plant which was affected by a a fire accident was restored, generating 840 MW again.
The four hour power cuts for houses had been reduced to three hours and the power holidays for the industries had been totally removed, she pointed out.
Giving a list of the proposed power generation schemes in the State, the Chief Minister said a 800 MW Udankudi expansion scheme, 1600 MW Uppur thermal plant, 800 MW Tuticorin fourth phase scheme and an 660 MW new scheme instead of the existing Ennore thermal plant would be activated soon.
The schemes fetching 3,860 MW power would be activated keeping in the view the future power requirements of the State, she said. Besides, the Chief Minister said she had ordered that the 1,600 MW Udangudi thermal power plant to be jointly taken up with BHEL would be implemented as a State government scheme at a cost of `8,000 crore, Jayalalithaa said and added that all the schemes would come into operation within the year 2015.