Chennai: Tempers are rising along with temperatures in Chennai and its suburbs. With no electricity for long stretches at night, fuming residents have held widespread protests, blocked roads and had heated confrontations with Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) officials over the past few days.
Residents of neighbourhoods such as Madipakkam, Perambur, Pallikaranai, Perumbakkam and Arumbakkam reported severe overnight disruptions, with some complaining about 24-hour blackouts, severely disrupting daily life during the city’s peak summer heat.
In several localities, protesters blocked roads on Wednesday demanding immediate action from the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO), forcing police intervention to manage the disruptions.
“Due to the extreme heat, we could not stay inside the house. My son works from home, and he could not attend to it because of no power supply the entire night,” said Lakshmi, a resident of Arumbakkam.
As anger spilled out onto the streets, residents said repeated calls to department officials went unanswered.
TANGEDCO officials maintained there was no lack of power supply in the state, though they acknowledged incidents of power cuts which they said department personnel were addressing.
“On Wednesday, the Chennai power consumption crossed 5,000 MW, and we have so much capacity in the city. If power supply was unavailable for the city, it would not be registered in the grid,” J. Radhakrishnan, chairman and managing director of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, told ThePrint. He is also the head of TANGEDCO.
“There are power cuts, but the situation is not as severe as it is being portrayed.”
The Tamil Nadu government, on Thursday, rolled out several measures to curb power cuts, including the deployment of 10 high-level monitoring teams led by senior officials and 125 special power restoration patrol vehicles across the state.
Seven rapid response teams of engineers equipped with vehicles have been formed in Chennai for the swift resolution of faults.
In addition, the number of Fuse-off Call centres, or customer service hubs, has been increased and the centres have been strengthened with 300 employees to handle complaints round-the-clock through the ‘Minnagam’ portal.
Protests across the city
As temperatures soared, residents in parts of Manali, Perambur and Vyasarpadi blocked roads on Wednesday, claiming that their power supply had been cut since the previous night.
More than 100 residents of Arumbakkam visited the local electricity board office on Wednesday, where they ended up having heated arguments with officials over the lack of response to their complaints about power cuts.
Officials assured them the department was looking into their concerns.
Arumbakkam residents reported a power cut at around 4.30 p.m. on Tuesday, with electricity restored only at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday. Several residents also said that electricity board officials stopped attending their calls after a point.
Perambur residents said the outages recurred every few hours. While there is temporary relief, they want the government to resolve the power supply issues permanently.
“There have been multiple power cuts since Sunday. We are having sleepless nights. Now schools have reopened, and my children’s routine gets affected. TANGEDCO should fix the issue permanently,” said Lincy, a resident of GKM colony in Perambur.
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Electricity minister hints at sabotage, theft
Tamil Nadu Electricity Minister C.T.R. Nirmal Kumar attributed the recurring power outages in Chennai and its suburbs primarily to equipment theft, sabotage, and load-related issues rather than any overall power shortage.
Addressing the media on Tuesday night, he highlighted that some individuals were deliberately tampering with infrastructure to provoke public protests.
He added that CCTV footage from areas like Avadi showed that unidentified people had stolen 150-200 High Rupturing Capacity (HRC) fuses from pillar boxes, leading to repeated interruptions and financial losses.
He pointed to sudden spikes in summer power demand that have strained the network. The ageing infrastructure, including decades-old transformers and cable networks, needs repair and replacement, which the department is undertaking.
Government officials also cited a shortage of staff and personnel, while financial constraints have added to the challenge. “There has been no revision of electricity tariffs in Tamil Nadu, which has directly constrained the finances and its ability to invest in upgrading the distribution network. Without additional revenue, renewal of the ageing infrastructure remains a challenge,” a senior TANGEDCO official told ThePrint.
TANGEDCO says scale of power crisis overstated
Amid mounting public anger, the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board’s Radhakrishnan acknowledged the power cuts but said the situation was being exaggerated.
Radhakrishnan said a field inspection in Madipakkam found isolated outages rather than a division-wide failure. “We did a field inspection in Madipakkam, and there was a power cut in a few streets, but there is adequate power supply in other areas of the division.”
The TANGEDCO chief also acknowledged the problem of tripping incidents reported across the city, but said teams were responding swiftly. “Tripping incidents are occurring in certain areas, but are being immediately attended to, and some of the transformers needed to be replaced.”
He added that the Arumbakkam outage was the result of a feeder problem in the distribution network.
“The outage in Arumbakkam was caused by a fault in the Valluvarkottam feeder, which was compounded by a stormwater drain leakage that had to be pumped out. Additionally, a distribution transformer in the area developed technical issues. However, these concerns are sorted, and the supply has been restored,” he said.
In other parts of the city, what were meant to be routine backfeeding operations to reroute power during maintenance encountered issues.
“In some places, backfeeding took place, and instead of using the designated backfeeding switch, an alternative switch was used by mistake, which caused further complications,” he said.
The TANGEDCO chief also addressed the fuse failures that left individual streets in the dark, cautioning against seeing them as evidence of a larger collapse. “In some cases, fuses on individual streets have blown, though the impact of these failures has been limited and localised and the issue is being portrayed as if the whole division does not have power, which is not true.”
Monitoring in real time
TANGEDCO officials also said the department was identifying locations across the city where the problem was chronic, and was tracking the grid continuously.
“Approximately 20 black spots have been identified across the city network, with one or two locations experiencing more persistent or severe issues. We are currently monitoring real-time electricity data at both the national and state levels,” said a TANGEDCO official.
Additional night patrols, MRT teams, specialised fault-detection vehicles, and enhanced financial powers for field officers have been introduced to expedite repairs.
The government is also focusing on filling vacancies, replacing old infrastructure, and increasing public vigilance through CCTV analysis and complaints against saboteurs.
Radhakrishnan said that with 38 lakh consumers on the network, these outages cannot be characterised as a widespread blackout. The department has appointed staff members to handle public complaints and restore electricity.
“Power supply challenges during summer are a common issue across India, and this situation is no exception,” he added.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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