Tamil Nadu’s power supply and electricity administration have come under fresh political scrutiny after AMMK general secretary T T V Dhinakaran accused the TVK government of failing to prevent unscheduled outages and questioned the continuance of Energy Minister C T R Nirmal Kumar. Dhinakaran said consumers across the state were facing hardship because of what he described as administrative failures in the power sector.
Speaking on Saturday, Dhinakaran questioned repeated explanations that attributed power cuts to maintenance work and technical faults. He alleged that the explanations had not adequately addressed complaints from residents, businesses and industries about interruptions to electricity supply.
The AMMK leader referred to a power outage at the Meenakshi Amman temple in Madurai during a visit by Vice-President C P Radhakrishnan and EPS. According to Dhinakaran, the incident exposed negligence and administrative lapses in the electricity department. He also alleged that Tangedco offered conflicting explanations for the outage, citing maintenance work initially and a technical fault later.
Dhinakaran said such explanations were attempts to conceal failures in the electricity system. His comments, as reported, were allegations by the opposition leader; the supplied report does not include a response from the state government, the energy minister or Tangedco to the charges.
The AMMK general secretary also listed several other issues that he said indicated a lack of direction and accountability in the department. These included erratic power supply, billing irregularities, smart meter tenders, contractual recruitment and a proposed tender for costly power purchases that was later withdrawn following public criticism.
Dhinakaran separately criticised Energy Minister C T R Nirmal Kumar, alleging that the minister had intervened in multiple issues without resolving the underlying problems. He questioned whether the continuing difficulties were primarily related to power supply or to the administration overseeing the electricity department.
He also asked why Chief Minister Joseph Vijay had not acted against the energy minister despite repeated assurances that action would be taken against officials found negligent. Dhinakaran alleged that the department had been in disarray for the past five months, though the report does not provide an independent assessment of that claim or data on the frequency and duration of outages.
The political criticism places reliability, billing, procurement and administrative responsibility at the centre of the state’s electricity debate. For consumers, the immediate issues raised include the handling of outage complaints, the consistency of explanations given by the electricity utility and the accountability of officials responsible for maintaining supply.
Dhinakaran demanded immediate administrative reforms and called on the chief minister to ensure uninterrupted electricity supply across Tamil Nadu. The next steps from the government, the energy department and Tangedco were not specified in the report.
