The summer seems to be getting worse for people living in Chennai. On Wednesday night, there were power blackouts in different areas like T Nagar, Nandanam, Kilpauk, Adyar and parts of Anna Salai - and sources say that this happened due to the non-payment of dues to the Vallur power plant.
The Vallur Power Station in North Chennai is a joint venture between the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distrubution Corporation Limited (TANGEDCO) and the National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC).
It has three units of 500MW each, and Tamil Nadu’s share from the units is 1,065MW. On Wednesday night, the NTPC shut two units of the plant due to non-payment of the dues, according to sources.
An IAS officer told The News Minute that the electricity board did not pay dues of over Rs 1000 crore to NTPC, because of which they shut down electricity of about 1000MW. Since the Vallur plant provides electricity only to north Chennai, those parts alone were affected, the IAS officer said. However, there were voltage fluctuations in other areas as well.
The TNEB is in a poor financial state, and is running into continuous losses, the source added. In fact, the accumulated debts of the TNEB could run up to Rs 1 lakh crore, he claimed.
The Hindu reported that Tamil Nadu has a demand of over 15,000 MW and the Vallur power plant provides power of 1,065 MW. Even if Tamil Nadu stops getting power from Vallur power plant, it still has a capacity of 17,039 MW which is taken from thermal stations, short term power plants from private players and power exchanges.