Breath easy: no power cuts this summer:minister assures House

Chennai, Jan 24 (UNI) Tamil Nadu Electricity Minister Arcot N Veerasamy today told the state Assembly that there would not be any power cut this summer.

Intervening the debate on the motion of thanks to the Governor for his address, he said anticipating increase in power consumption during the summer, the State Electricity Board has made arrangements to tide over the crisis.

He said thanks to the initiative taken by Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, the Centre has agreed to provide 350 MW and the Board would get 250 MW from Assam and Haryana and another 150 MW from Kerala.

This would be enough to tide over the crisis and the opposition need not create panic among the people about power cuts, he said criticising the AIADMK.

Referring to Mr P K Sekar Bab's (AIADMK) charge that there was undeclared power cut in the State as the DMK government failed to take steps to meet the power requirement, Mr Veerasamy charged that during the previous AIADMK regime, only 360 MW of power was generated. The present DMK government has finalised schemes for 3500 MW of power generation.

He said had the previous government launched new schemes, the present scenario could have been averted. The power position was comfortable during the previous AIADMK regime only because of the schemes launched by the DMK government during 1996-2001.

Participating in the debate on the motion of thanks to the Governor for his address, Mr Sekar Babu said there was excess power generation during the previous Jayalalithaa regime. Against the demand of 8,800 MW of power, more than 10,000 MW of power was generated, he said.

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