18 power feeders in city damaged by rain, work on to fix them: TN Electricity Minister Senthil Balaji

CHENNAI: After inspecting the load despatch centre at Tangedco’s headquarters, Electricity Minister V Senthil Balaji on Saturday said 18 of the city’s 1,834 feeders had been damaged due to heavy rain, adding efforts are on to restore them.He told media persons that, in order to provide an uninterrupted power supply, alternative sources had also been utilised. Apart from this, there were no issues in power distribution.

“Even though the state receives heavy rainfall, none of the places have been affected because of the quick work. We (Tangedco) assigned 11,000 employees to work effectively on the field during the monsoon, and 2,040 are working in the state capital,” he said.The minister also pointed out that they were creating awareness about electricity usage through short films and urged the residents to be safe and careful.

Speaking about the power demand during the monsoon, he said the demand stood at 11,200 MW alone on Friday. As part of cost-cutting measures, the power utility encouraged hydro and solar power generation instead of coal-based thermal plants. Tangedco gets 1,400 MW of solar power daily.