A girl goes looking for drinking water in Ghatal town of West Midnapore. Picture by Swarup Mondal

Calcutta/Durgapur, June 22: A power crisis looms on the state because rain-soaked coal at power plants has made feeding it into boilers almost impossible.

“The coal we have received over the past two days is wet and muddy, so bad that it is getting stuck in conveyor belts and making it very difficult to feed the boilers,” said S. Mahapatra, the managing director of the West Bengal Power Development Corporation.

Last evening, there was a shortfall of 450MW in the districts but only around 100MW in Calcutta as CESC generated about 990MW and got around 300MW from the state board.

Sunday was better because demand was low. But Monday could mean trouble.

All six units at the Kolaghat plant had collapsed on Tuesday after floodwaters submerged its switchyard and cable trenches. Four of them, which could be restarted only by Friday, had just started generation full-steam when the wet coal consignments dealt a blow.

The four units generated 550MW yesterday, almost 300MW below capacity.

Engineers at the plant managed to start a fifth 210MW unit this evening but how much it will generate in the next few days is uncertain.

“If the quality of coal does not improve, it will not be possible for us to increase generation. We have started a fifth unit. But because of the wet coal, the five units will not be able to generate over 650MW,” said Mahapatra.

Each Kolaghat unit needs about 3,500 tonnes of coal every day.

Mahapatra said generation at the two operating 210MW Bakreswar units had not been affected till last evening, “but there is a wet coal problem in Bakreswar, too”.

“We hope to restart another 210MW unit there by tonight to combat the power crisis in the coming week,” he added, confirming the likely scenario in the week ahead.

Eastern Coalfields Ltd (ECL) said bright sunshine for two or three days would dry up the coal in its open-cast mines and yards.

But the Met office poured water on such a possibility.

In the Durgapur-Asansol area, from where coal goes to the power plants, there is little possibility of uninterrupted and bright sunshine in the next two days.

“The sky will remain cloudy. In fact, there is possibility of rain in the Durgapur-Asansol area during the next 48 hours. A cyclonic circulation (anti-clockwise movement of air) is developing over Jharkhand and it is expected to trigger rain in the region,” said G.C. Debnath, the director of weather section at the weather office in Calcutta.

ECL director (technical) U.S. Upadhyay said the situation was unavoidable. “The coal is wet because of heavy rain in the area. This is something that can’t be avoided. The coal needs bright sunshine in the next 48 or 72 hours to dry up.”

In May, when the demand had soared because of the scorching sun and new power plants had failed their generation deadlines, the state had plunged into a crisis.

Governor Goplakrishna Gandhi had decided to switch off Raj Bhavan lights for two hours everyday to empathise with the millions who had to bear with power cuts.