Thangamani refutes Stalin’s allegations on coal import

Clarifying that parts of the State saw power outage on Monday and Tuesday as a result of a combination of factors including low wind power generation and scheduled annual maintenance in the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant and Vallur thermal power station, the minister stated that the shortage faced is temporary and unforeseen. 

Stalin had alleged that there had been irregularities in Tangedco in the purchase of electronic meters. But Thangamani said the entire tendering process has been overhauled to adopt a transparent e-tender method since January 2017 and the relevant documents are available for scrutiny in the public domain. 

Rebutting Stalin on the loss due to purchase of low-quality coal, the State has said that the procurement is in line with the existing legislation, the Tamil Nadu Tender Transparency Rules, 2000 and Tender Transparency Act, 1998. 

The quality of the coal is also scrutinised by independent inspection agencies certified by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration (NABL) and by the labs of Tangedco. 

Any discrepancies are addressed by the Central Power Research Institute. The response added that contrary to the allegations, the adoption of e-tender and e-reverse auction had resulted in saving Rs 182 crore in 2017. 

Meanwhile, referring to the findings of CAG on the loss suffered by Tangedco in coal procurement and cases moved in this regard in the Delhi High Court, former food minister and senior DMK leader E V Velu wondered if the minister was aware of such cases and asked if he claims to be more intelligent that the Comptroller and Auditor General. 

Recalling the raids conducted at his predecessor Natham R Viswanathan’s residence and CAG’s finding that Tangedco had advised the suppliers to overprice coal, Velu sought to know if the minister was aware of his engineers expressing inability to work on field without proper cables. 

Velu urged Thangamani to make constructive efforts to restructure the State-owned power utility and augment production instead of ridiculing the criticism of opposition parties.