TOKYO, Jan 31: Japan's largest utility operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, admitted on Wednesday that it falsified data at its nuclear power plants for three decades in an attempt to easily pass compulsory government inspections.

The TEPCO said it discovered falsifications of technical data on nearly 200 occasions from 1977 to 2002 at three nuclear power plants, and reported them to the Trade and Industry Ministry as requested.

The company also found three cases of improper modifications at two thermal plants, it said. However, the modifications did not affect plant safety, the company said in a statement on its Web site.

The falsifications have passed the three-year statute of limitations and the company is likely to escape punishment, Kyodo News agency reported.

In December, the ministry ordered TEPCO to review past data following the company's discovery of falsification of cooling water data at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in the late 1980s. The company also faked test operations at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in northern Japan in 1992, when an emergency core cooling system pump failed during government inspection.

TEPCO came under fire after another safety data cover-up scandal in 2002, stirring public distrust of Japan's nuclear industry.—AP