State Govt. to present white paper on TANGEDCO soon, says power minister

Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation Limited (TANGEDCO) will submit a white paper soon, Minister for Power Resources and Law Nirmal Kumar said in Madurai on Sunday.

In an interaction with reporters, he accused former electricity minister Senthilbalaji of “ruining TANGEDCO”.

According to Mr. Kumar, corruption was everywhere. Bad practices, maladministration and poor management dragged the department down.

Whether it was floating tenders, the purchase of transformers or the sanctioning of licenses for new entrants to enter the renewable energy industry, corruption and favoritism, among other things. Mr. Senthilbalaji neglected the rules. In many situations, he broke the rule to oblige a select group of people, Mr. Kumar claimed.

Tamil Nadu, which was once at the top, was at the bottom when it came to the renewable energy sector, he said, alleging that it was because of high corruption by those in power then. Instead of encouraging entrepreneurs to set up units, the DMK government only wanted to make money and keep a few beneficiaries happy.

The real business groups thus quietly moved to other states, he argued.

“For every megawatt, Mr. Senthilbalaji demanded ₹25 crore as commission from the complainants through his loyalist,” he claimed, adding that both the Supreme Court and the CBI police were keeping a close eye on the allegations.

To keep the new government transparent, he said the selection process and other procedures will be conducted according to law. Very soon the government would tell the people how much money they would save through direct administration.

Asked about recruitment in TANGEDCO, he said when there were nearly 70,000 vacancies in TANGEDCO, why was the government silent and why did it not take steps for recruitment in the past.

“We are now assessing the staffing requirements and soon the recruitment process would begin in a free and fair manner.”

He said that in the last four weeks alone, a number of political decisions on TANGEDCO procedures have changed.

“We will tell the public. They don’t have to pay a single rupee as a cut or party fund to get a license or to empower their existing units and others. There will be no middlemen. No brokers,” he assured.

Commenting on the frequent power outages in Chennai, Mr. Kumar attributed it to poor infrastructure. What was provided about ten years ago continues.

Governments in the past have not set up any new substations or installed or upgraded existing transformers.

For a city like Madurai, with the current power demand, six substations were required to be installed and therefore, in the state capital (Chennai), the number of SSs was to be rapidly expanded in proportion to the population and power demand, he said.

He said if TANGEDCO was bad, it was worse in solar/wind energy as the entire sector was operating under a lobby run by Mr. Senthilbalaji, he said, adding that the new government had made them efficient.

He also accused former Electricity Minister Sivasankaran of being just a “stamp” and the entire TANGEDCO was remotely controlled by Mr Senthilbalaji, his brother Ashok and a few others.

Published – 14 Jun 2026 22:21 IST