The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Power situation will improve soon: Tripathy

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Saturday, Aug 23, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Power situation will improve soon: Tripathy

Special Correspondent

TIRUCHI: The power shortage being faced by the State is only a “transient phase,” and the situation will ease once the monsoon becomes active, Chief Secretary L.K. Tripathy told reporters here on Friday.

“We are looking for an improvement in power generation in hydel stations soon, as the monsoon has picked up over the past 15 days,” he said. Asked whether the power holiday would end soon, he said, “We hope so.”

Attributing the shortage to monsoon failure, Mr. Tripathy, however, observed that Tamil Nadu was better off than most other States. There had been difficulties in getting power from the national grid and other places. However, the government was meeting the crisis in the best possible ways.

The State had its own resources. Apart from wind power, it would start getting power from unit I of the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plan from April 2009 and unit II unit by December 2009. The State would get about 900 MW of power from the plant.

On diesel shortage in Chennai and its neighbouring districts, Mr. Tripathy said the situation was improving. The oil companies had assured the government that normal supply would continue with provision for a 15 per cent annual increase. The government has written to the Centre and requested the oil companies to increase the allocation in view of the surge in demand. Answering a query on the reported problems in the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Mr. Tripathy said that the execution of the programme in Tamil Nadu had been commended as very efficient and effective at the last review conducted by the Centre

Tamil Nadu was the only State that has adopted the rural schedule of rates, which was more liberal than the Public Works Department schedule. The scheme and payment of wages was work-oriented. The government had instructed that the disbursement of wages should be done at the work site, under the supervision of the village committees.

IT park

The Chief Secretary attributed the delay in the take-off of the Information Technology Park at Tiruchi to the slowdown in the IT industry owing to the recession in the United States. There was good response from IT companies to the Tiruchi Park, which would come up soon.

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