On a day India played Pakistan in the ICC Champions Trophy, Sourav Ganguly spent Ashtami at his para Puja. The former India captain, along with wife Dona and brother Snehashish, offered anjali at the Barisha Player’s Corner Puja and spent almost the whole day at the pandal. In the evening, he alternated between watching Mahendra Singh Dhoni lead Team India against arch-rivals Pakistan and savouring his para Puja. Picture by Aranya Sen

Calcutta, Sept. 26: The Bengal government has threatened to initiate action after a rare blackout at the peak of Saptami plunged some of the best-known Pujas into darkness in south Calcutta last night and “annoyed” the chief minister.

Vast areas of south Calcutta, particularly Gariahat and adjoining regions, were blanketed in darkness for 14 minutes from 12.33am on Saturday.

Thousands of pandal-hoppers in big Pujas like Maddox Square, Ekdalia Evergreen and Singhi Park were caught by surprise. Calcutta is used to power cuts but no official could recall an outage during the Pujas in recent years.

Attributing the power cut to the CESC’s “load distribution management problem” — which co-ordinates how much power will go where — chief secretary Asok Mohan Chakrabarti today said steps would be taken against those at fault. The CESC termed it “an accident”.

Finance minister Asim Dasgupta said at Writers’ Buildings: “The chief minister is annoyed. At a time thousands of people were out on the streets to celebrate the Pujas, how can one accept power cuts?”

The finance minister said Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee wanted an explanation. “The chief minister has spoken to the chief secretary and asked him to seek an explanation from the people concerned. Police, however, managed the crowd well during such a crisis.”

On instructions from Bhattacharjee, the chief secretary held a meeting with West Bengal Power Development Corporation managing director Debashis Sen, West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company chairman Moloy De, senior CESC officials and city police commissioner Gautam Mohan Chakrabarti.

After the meeting, the chief secretary said: “I heard what the various power utilities had to say. The chief minister is concerned at the power situation during the Puja days, particularly in the wake of the power cut incident in south Calcutta.

“As of now, it appears that the blackout was because of the CESC’s load distribution management problem. We will initiate steps against those responsible for the incident after the power secretary submits a detailed report.”

Asked what sort of action he was contemplating, Chakrabarti said: “Let me get the details of the report first. After that, I will be able to say the kind of measures that can be taken. But I was really feeling helpless in the dead of the night thinking about the thousands roaming around in south Calcutta.”

The chief secretary instructed both the state and private utilities to ensure proper supply without break during the rest of the Pujas.

Asked whether the CESC had said it was at fault, he said: “I am not the secretary or spokesman of CESC. Whatever I said was on the basis of the understanding and impression I had gathered during today’s meeting.’’

The chief secretary added: “Why should there be even a minute of power cut when there was no shortfall?”

A CESC source said the demand was 920MW and the generation 975MW when the outage happened. “The CESC feeder station and the WBSEB sub-station exist almost side by side in Kasba. When the incident happened, the SEB sub-station was connected with the CESC feeder line and both lines tripped,” an official said.