Denying chief minister Jayalalithaa’s charge that the previous DMK regime was responsible for the prevailing power shortage in the state, DMK president M. Karunanidhi on Sunday said that his government initiated projects to generate power to the tune of 7798 MW during his tenure.
“The present power crisis was due to the failure of the AIADMK government during 2001-06 to initiate new power projects to meet the growing demands,” he said in a statement issued here.
Mr Karunanidhi said that after coming to power in 2006, works on the new power projects were launched considering the future power demands.
“We have planned to add 1400 MW in 2010-11, 3316 MW in 2011-12, 1222 MW in 2012-13 and 1860 MW in 2013-14 to the grid,” he said.
“The various power stations that are reaching completion are the initiative taken by the DMK government when it was in power,” he said.
He claimed that new factories were opened in the state from 2006. If the previous AIADMK government had taken steps to increase power supply, the present crisis would not have occurred and people would not have been forced to undergo such hardships.
He flayed Jayalalithaa’s claim that it was only her party, which took steps to increase the power supply, saying, “one cannot cheat everyone at all times”.
Taking a dig at Ms Jayalalithaa for criticising his party’s boycott of the bypoll, DMK chief said that his party boycotted the June 12 Pudukottai Assembly poll as the government allocated Rs 50 crore as special assistance and deployed all its ministers before declaration of the election.