Jaya raises power grid issue at Southern Zonal Council

 Upset over Centre's inability to divert additional power surrendered by Delhi to it, Tamil Nadu, facing acute power shortage, today sought steps to interconnect southern and national grids, saying "geographical location of a state should not be a handicap to buying or selling power".

While North, East, West and North East were interconnected as a single grid, the Southern region had not been interconnected with the National grid, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa told 25th meeting of Southern Zonal Council, chaired by Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde.

"This creates an imbalance between the Southern region and the rest of the country, disabling the Southern region from actively participating in and benefiting from National power market," said Jayalalithaa, whose speech was read out by Finance Minister O Panneer Selvam on her behalf.

"The geographical location of a particular State should not be a handicap to buying or selling electricity from or to any other State within the country. This problem should be sorted out by the Government of India at the earliest", she said.

Last week the Centre told the Supreme Court that it was not possible to supply power to Tamil Nadu, surrendered by Delhi, as the grid in state did not have the capacity for absorbing additional power and the state itself was responsible for it.

Noting that the demand-supply mismatch at present was between 3000 to 4000 MW, she said it was estimated the expected demand by the end of 12th Plan Period will be 18,311 MW whereas the present availability was only around 8,500 MW.

She recalled her letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the allocation of entire power of 1000 MW to be generated from the first unit of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant.

Chief Minister said the North Chennai Thermal Power Station project (comprising two additional units of 600 MW - 1,200 MW) was ready for commissioning but revised environment clearance has not yet given by Ministry of Environment and Forest department.