And then there was no light…

Till a few years back, the eastern region comprising states like West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Jharkhand was considered “surplus” in power.

Till a few years back, the eastern region comprising states like West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Jharkhand was considered “surplus” in power. Electricity was supplied from here to other states to meet their requirements.

But as the police firing on protesters demanding power in Bhagalpur last week shows, the situation has changed drastically since then. While the Bhagalpur incident may have been the worst manifestation of the crisis, the rise in demand, coupled with poor maintenance, coal supply bottlenecks and power plant shutdowns, has plunged many regions into darkness.

Even on government holidays and during winter, when demand should ideally be low, many parts of Bihar and West Bengal have started witnessing loadshedding. As temperatures rise, the situation is expected to get worse.

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Over the past couple of weeks, Bihar has seen the worst outages, bringing people onto the streets. It was one such public protest that turned violent at Kahalgaon town in Bhagalpur district, resulting in the death of three people in police firing.

While the state Government is asking for more power from the Central pool, officials say technical factors are to blame for the heavy loadshedding in Bihar.

They say that till recently the state had suppressed demand because the subtransmission and distribution systems to take power to the final consumer were inadequate. With these systems being put in place slowly, there is a rise in demand. However, given the inadequate power supply, this demand cannot be met — thereby increasing the loadshedding.

Added to this, a high number of powerline outages also ensure that even if electricity is available, it cannot be transmitted.

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While attempts are being made at the national level to add fresh capacity to meet the demand for power, sources say the way existing assets are utilised leaves much to be desired.

Consider this:

• In past two weeks there were days when there were as many as 19 high-tension powerline outages in the region, preventing the flow of power

• On some of these transmission lines (Pataratu-Bodhgaya, falling in Jharkhand/ Bihar), the reason for outage was “theft of conductor” or even tower collapse. What is even more shocking is that the tower collapsed way back in 2002

• Units of power plants are frequently shut down on account of technical factors. Over the past two weeks, there has hardly been a day when a minimum 880 MW of power has not been lost on this account

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• Coal-supply bottlenecks have also hit power generation. NTPC, owned by the Central Government, is not getting enough supplies from another Central Government-owned company, Coal India. As a result, NTPC’s Farrakka power station has had to regularly cut generation by 400 MW past fortnight. One day both Kahalgaon and Farrakka were affected by poor coal supply. The loss in capacity on that day was close to 600 MW.