Power Shortage in Tamil Nadu

The demand has climbed to a steep 11,000MW and the demandsupply gap has grown to 4,000MW , indicating a skewed policy by successive governments in Tamil Nadu at a time when the other states were rapidly expanding their capacity.

TN's installed generation capacity went up only by 483 MW in the decade between 2001 and 2010, while neighbouring Karnataka and AP increased their supply by more than 2,000MW.

TN's misguided policy becomes more evident when seen in the context of a surging industrial and domestic demand , which rose from 6,000MW in 2001 to 10,000MW in 2010.

The Union Planning Commission's statistics show that in 2001, the state had an installed capacity of 5,222MW, excluding central projects and Wind Energy.Installed capacity by 2010-end was 5,705MW .During the same period, the installed capacities of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka went up by 2,605 MW and 2,496 MW.

Both the AIADMK and the DMK, projects were launched between 2001 and 2011, but none have met the deadlines and remain still in progress.

The present crisis is expected to last till June 2013