Patna, Jan. 7: The NTPC plants in Bihar have, so far, remained largely unaffected by the five-day nationwide coal strike that entered its second day on Wednesday.

But the NTPC officials, who say that the power major has sufficient coal stock for a week or so, cautioned that things may get from bad to worse if the strike extends beyond a week.

The NTPC has three plants in Bihar - 2,340MW plant at Kahalgaon, 660MW plant at Barh and 220MW plant at Muzaffarpur. Bihar has share of 1,084MW out of 3,220MW generated by all the three plants.

'There is no impact of strike on the Barh plant, which has an installed capacity of 660MW due to the coal strike. We have a coal reserve for a week,' Vishwanath Chandan told The Telegraph.

The Barh plant consumes 11,000 to 12,000 tonnes of per day, he said.

The NTPC sources said the Kahalgaon and Muzaffarpur plants too have sufficient coal reserve for a week. 'Since the five-day coal strike was well-known in advance, so the NTPC management had already pro actively made arrangements to ensure the stock of sufficient coal.'

There is no impact of coal strike in Bihar is evident from the power drawal which the state has been making in past couple of days. Bihar State Power (Holding) Company Ltd official sources said the state drew around 2,600MW of power on Wednesday while it received around 2,400-2,600MW supply in the past three days.

Kahalgaon plant requires coal supply of 33,000-37,000 tonnes per day to run its all seven units (500mwX3 units and 210mwX4 units = 2340MW). While Muzaffarpur plant, sources say, requires around 4,000 to 5,000 tonnes to generate 220MW per day.

NTPC Muzaffarpur public relations officer Vakil Ahmad feigned ignorance about the coal stock requirement saying that he did not have any idea vis-à-vis availability or stock of coal. In a release, Ahmad, however, said Muzaffarpur plant has been generating cent per cent of capacity since January 4 (2015). The plant made a record generation of 100.89 per cent on Tuesday (Jan 6), he added.

The sources, however, expressed concern that generation may plummet drastically after a week and lead to shut down too if coal supply is not resumed at all the power generating plants. They expressed hope that the situation would be improved as both coal and power ministries are being held by one person, Piyush Goyal, who is holding parleys with striking trade unions to end the logjam.

The strike call has been given by all five major trade unions, including BJP-backed Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, against 'disinvestment in Coal India and denationalisation of coal mining'.