Sept. 28: Fresh supply of dry coal improved the power situation in the state and a sunny day brought hopes of a better Saturday.

The West Bengal Power Development Corporation, which runs the state-owned power plants, said the situation was likely to improve further by Monday.

The shortfall in areas served by CESC and the West Bengal State Electricity Development Company was around 750MW during the peak hour this evening, about 390MW less than yesterday.

The crisis, triggered by flooded coal mines and lack of supply because of landslips under railway tracks in the recent rain, was the worst in many years.

Wet coal hit generation at Kolaghat, Bakreswar, Bandel and Santaldih.

In the city, there was a deficit of 150MW this evening.

“We have improved our generation today and we expect to improve it further by Monday as we have received supply of good quality coal at the Kolaghat and Bakreswar plants,” said power development corporation managing director S. Mahapatra.

Eight rakes of coal arrived at Kolaghat and Bakreswar today. Each rake carries 3,500 to 4,000 tonnes of coal.

The coal rakes came from the Pandaveswar and Jajhra mines of Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL) in Durgapur and Bengal-Emta colliery in the Asansol subdivision.

Torrential rain over the last weekend had flooded many open coal pits in Bengal and Jharkhand.

ECL, which feeds the power units, said output had come down almost 90 per cent at its open-cast mines because of the rain.

However, its officials were optimistic today that the quality of coal will improve with the Met office ruling out another spell of heavy rain in the next few days.

“We have already installed about 50 pumps to drain out water from the open mines in the Durgapur and Asansol subdivisions. If we get three-four days of sunshine, we will also be able to dry the coal already raised,” said U.S. Upadhyay, an ECL director.