The present scheduled load shedding system of two hour a day, 20 per cent power cuts for industries along with the peak hour restrictions would remain unchanged till January, according to A. Nachadalingam, Chief Engineer (Distribution) of Madurai Region, Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO).
The TANGEDCO Madurai region comprises Madurai, Theni, Dindigul, Sivaganga and Ramanathapuram districts.
Addressing an interactive session organised here on Wednesday by the Madurai Zone of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), he said that power capacity addition was the only way to tackle the power shortage.
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The TANGEDCO had undertaken a series of long-term and short-term measures to tackle the crisis.
Power projects with a total capacity of 4,300 MW were not in various stages of completion and would be commissioned during 2011-13. While most of these projects were TANGEDCO's, others were joint ventures and independent projects. Once these projects materialised, the State would become power-surplus.
He also spoke about the various concession and facilities being offered to the industries.
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Among those were emailing the current consumption bills and facilitating payments through online and electronic clearing system (ECS).
Mr. Nachadalingam also took questions from the participants and clarified their doubts. Amercing a question of evacuation of power from wind mills, he said that it was a priority for TANGEDCO as Tamil Nadu had the highest installed capacity of wind mills in the country.
However as the present infrastructure was inadequate, it had sought funds from the Union Ministry of New and Renewable energy for establishing a separate corridor for wind power.
Speaking earlier, Shyam Prakash Gupta, Chairman, CII Madurai Zone, said that assured quality power supply was vital to achieve Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's aim of making Tamil Nadu as the number one industrialised State in the country.
S. Eswarasubramanian, Executive Engineer (Electrical), K. Thangaraj, Superintending Engineer, Madurai, K.S. Varatharajan, Superintending Engineer, Madurai Metro, also attended the programme along with officials from the Finance and other departments.