The Hindu : Power position stable: Minister

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 07, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

Power position stable: Minister

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI Sept. 6. Despite the shutdown of a unit at the Neyveli Lignite Corporation and a fire at a Tuticorin thermal plant's transformer, the Electricity Minister, Nainar Nagendran, this evening said there was no major problem and no threat of State "plunging into darkness".

In a release, the Minister said even as the NLC Unit-II was shut down following a fire in the conveyor belt on Wednesday, the private sector plant at Pillaiyarperumal Nallur, which closed down for maintenance, had started functioning at 8.20 p.m. on the same day.

It was providing 320 MW, almost compensating the loss of 440 MW from the NLC unit. Mr. Nagendran clarified that the entire 600 MW from the NLC Unit-1 was fully available to Tamil Nadu.

Following the release of water from Mettur, the Electricity Board would be able to generate about 250 MW from this hydel source.

This would add to the availability of power in the State grid.

The authorities were confident of managing the power demand, after reviewing the situation.

Meanwhile, top TNEB officials remained huddled at review meetings and were working out at calculations on coping with the emerging power situation.

Sources said normal generation was expected from the Tuticorin plant at least by Saturday morning and as such, there was no major shortfall in generation because of the problem at Neyveli or Tuticorin.

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