Ranchi, July 3: The state government and its power utility may have spoken too early.

For, a day after the Jharkhand State Electricity Board (JSEB) proudly informed the high court that the state had “surplus power”, all sub-stations — including those in the capital — were ordered to enforce load shedding on an hourly basis.

Early this evening, generation in the state plunged to 180MW against a peak time demand of over 800MW after the unit at Tenughat Vidyut Nigam Limited developed technical snags and had to be shut down.

In its efforts to meet the shortfall, JSEB withdrew heavily from the central pool — 275MW against its scheduled allocation of 260MW. But faced with the yawning demand-supply gap, JSEB was left with no option but to order blanket load shedding.

JSEB officials, however, sounded encouraging. They said urgent repairs had already been concluded and Tenughat Vidyut Nigam Limited was in the process of being re-started. Normal supply was expected to be restored by late evening today.

The officials explained that the state’s only hydel unit at Sikidiri, near Ranchi, was being operated during the peak evening hours. This added a precious 100MW to the capital’s supply.

But residents of the capital had a harrowing today. Argora sub-station had to suspend supplies throughout Ashoka Nagar and adjoining areas in the morning in two spells of one-and-a-half hour each in the morning, after repairs began at the Hatia grid.

Doranda sub-station officials told The Telegraph that load shedding had to be enforced in the afternoon after the main lines tripped.

It was worst at the Kanke sub-station, which had to suspend supplies to Pithoria and its adjoining areas since 11pm yesterday evening following technical snags in the main lines.

Till this evening, supply couldn’t be restored as heavy rains hampered repair work.