Chief Secy orders to rectify issues causing recurrent outages

CHENNAI: Chief Secretary Shiv Das Meena on Monday instructed Tangedco officials to rectify the issues causing recurrent power outages in some localities and take immediate action on consumer complaints.

After inspecting the utility’s round-the-clock call centre “Minnagam” at its headquarters on Anna Salai, he noted that Tangedco has set up 60 flying squads comprising technicians to fix power failures during night hours in the Chennai region.

“The call centre is manned by 65 people round-the-clock in three shifts to record consumer grievances of electricity consumers and alert the section office concerned. Two superintendent engineers monitor the call centre during each shift. Out of the 23.97 lakh complaints received, actions were taken on 23.93 lakh complaints, which accounts for 99.82 per cent. They also follow it up with the consumer till the grievance is addressed before closing the complaint and alerting the consumer about it via SMS,” Meena said.

The Chief Secretary reviewed the situation at a time when farmer’s associations and political parties are alleging restrictions in supply to agriculture consumers. He told reporters that Tangedco ensured uninterrupted power supply even when the power demand touched an all-time high of 20,840 MW on May 2.

“Apart from our generating stations, we also get power from the central grid and through power purchase agreements. Whenever there is a shortage, we also buy power from the market to ensure 100 per cent power supply,” he said, adding that there was no gap between the power requirement and distribution in the State.

“Uninterrupted and threephase power supply is provided across the State. The unexpected failures in the transmission and distribution networks during the summer are addressed immediately,” he said.

Meena added that the recently inaugurated Stage III of North Chennai Thermal Power Station (NCTPS) has stabilised at 400MW - 50 per cent of its capacity - and said wind power generation was expected to pick up later this month.