An official release said that the minister also instructed the division engineers whose division has recorded the high number of power outages, transformer faults and complaints should take steps to reduce it. “If the number of complaints did not reduce, the action would be initiated against them, ” he said.

“In Chennai and its suburbs, the officials should carry out maintenance appropriately at the substations, transformers and pillar boxes and take steps to reduce the number of complaints from the consumers, ” the release quoted the minister.

Speaking to reporters, he said that steps have been taken for executing 316 substations. “Of this, the land has been identified for 271 sub-stations. The project estimate has been prepared for 174 substations and is ready to invite tenders. The land for the remaining 45 SS would be identified soon, ” he said.

The minister said that the height of the pillar boxes at 1427 locations has been increased by a meter in the city where rainwater inundation was reported. “The instructions have been given to convert the overhead cables in the left-out areas of Chennai into underground cables, ” he said, adding that seven divisions in the city have overhead cables which would be converted into underground cables soon.