SALEM: A day after the midnight blaze crippled power production at the Mettur Thermal Power Plant, a high-level team of officials, which conducted a review of the incident on Thursday, said that production at the plant would resume in a month.However, efforts would be made to reduce the one-month deadline to 20 days, Tamil Nadu Electricity Board chairman Rajiv Ranjan assured. However, based on the review, the team arrived at theory that the high temperatures over the last three days could have ignited the ‘highly combustible’ imported coal while it was being transported on the conveyor system, which was also damaged beyond repair, leading to the fire. The prelimenary hunch that an electrical leak could have triggered a spark, which in turn triggered the blaze, could not be substantiated, officials said.The loss owing to the stoppage of power production was pegged at `10 crore a day. Speaking to Express about the restoration work, Ranjan said the task of putting in place the conveyor system would be Herculean. Almost the entire 200 metres of the conveyor system would have to be replaced. The repair work would require about 400 tonnes of steel and 500 metres of heavy duty belt. “The order has already been placed,” he said. According to the Mettur Thermal Plant officials, an initial sum of Rs 50 lakh would be released to commence the restoration work at the thermal power plant. Rajiv Ranjan and other top officials of the TNEB and TANGEDCO visited the TNEB workshop in Mettur, which after being defunct for many years has recently commenced operations.
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