The Telangana statehood stir in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh is substantially affecting power supply in Tamil Nadu, said chief minister J Jayalalithaa on Sunday.
In the past four days, the state government has had to cut as much as 1,026 Mw of supply. The CM says NTPC has reduced generation to 1,100 Mw at its Ramagundam Thermal Power Station in Andhra, due to disruption in supply from the Singareni coalfields, impacting half of its supply to Tami.l Nadu. While Andhra gets 36 per cent of power produced from Ramagundam, the rest is shared by Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Puducherry and Goa.
Supply from the Simhadri thermal power plants in Andhra was also reduced, said the CM. She listed other reasons, too. These include flooding in Orissa, reduction in supply from the Kaiga atomic power station in Karnataka and reduction in wind energy generation. All have controbnuted to the power cuts.
The CM, who took charge on May 16, has said her target is to turn the power shortage she inherited into a situation of surplus. The current generation capacity is 10,237 Mw and the government says it would add 3,800 Mw in the short-term, with an investment of Rs 22,800 crore, either under the state sector or through joint ventures.