Calcutta, July 3: A boiler snag in the CESC’s Budge Budge plant plunged much of the city into darkness this evening even as wet coal hobbled other power units in Bengal.

The shortfall during the evening peak hours shot up to 195MW amid signs the situation would be the same tomorrow.

The problem was spotted in one of the two 250MW units at Budge Budge early today. Attempts are on to start the unit by tomorrow night but the day could see power cuts.

“We expect the cuts to continue tomorrow. If we can bring the unit back after repairs by night, the situation will improve from Saturday,” a CESC official said. The Met office has forecast light to moderate rain tomorrow, raising hopes of some relief in the long hours without fans and ACs.

Power cuts have hit the city since the middle of last month, after heavy rain left the coal fed into generating units too wet for use at the Kolaghat and Bakreswar plants.

Today, the cuts began around 2.30pm and continued for up to three-and-a-half hours on average in many areas of the city. The impact wasn’t felt evenly, though, as the West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company supplied over 600MW to the CESC during the day. But in the evening, as the requirement went up, the distribution company could spare only around 400MW.

“The demand in Calcutta crossed 1,400MW this evening because of humid weather,” a power department official said. Six units at Kolaghat generated 900MW this evening against their capacity of 1,260MW. The three 210-MW units at Bakreswar produced 490 MW, 140MW less than they can.

“The generation at Bakreswar and Kolaghat is low because of wet coal from the Asansol-Ranigunj belt,” said S. Mahapatra, managing director of West Bengal Power Development Corporation, which runs the two units.