Power disruption in Puducherry was minimal: Lt. Governor

Tamilisai Soundararajan. File. | Photo Credit: C. Venkatachalapathy

Privatisation of electricity is for the benefit of people, says Tamilisai Soundararajan

Puducherry has not plunged into any darkness, said Tamilisai Soundararajan, Lt. Governor of Puducherry.

At Coimbatore Airport on October 6, she told reporters that Puducherry suffered power disruptions for only four hours and that too because of some unwanted actions by a section of workers. It was overcome by alternate remedial action, she added, and expressed happiness at the withdrawal of the strike by Puducherry State power workers.

Privatisation was being misinterpreted and the social media was agog with such misinformed posts. Privatisation of electricity in the Union Territory would fetch enormous profits, she said and pointed out that in many States electricity was privatised and people reap the benefit of privatisation by way of lower tariff.

“Privatisation per se will not affect the workers and the government is keen to avert any setback to any section of the society. It is only with the people in mind, the electricity department is being privatised,” she said.

She suspected the power theft lobby to be behind the strike by electricity workers. At no cost, electricity workers or officials or their career advancement would be affected because of the privatisation. She clarified that in her words “stringent action” to be initiated was only an outcome of the government’s decision to protect the public interest and all actions are being taken only in consultation with the Chief Minister.

Power outages triggered panic in the minds of the tourists and said that one will have to wait and watch whether the power workers strike would be back.

On the remarks by Tamil film director Vetrimaaran on Raja Raja Chozhan and Makkal Needhi Maiyam leader Kamal Hassan’s support to the same, she said that she was at a loss on whether to laugh at these comments. She said she grew up seeing the Thanjavur Big Temple and added that there was an attempt to hide the cultural identity and this needs to be opposed. “Worship, Saivam and Vainavam are the cultural identity of Tamils and any attempt to hide these identities would be inappropriate,” Ms. Tamilisai said.