Chief minister Nitish Kumar with Union power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde in New Delhi on Thursday. Telegraph picture

Patna, May 12: Chief minister Nitish Kumar today met Union power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and demanded an increase of 500MW in the existing central allocation worth 1772MW to the state. He also demanded assured supply of power to Bihar from the allocation.

Kumar, who was on a day’s visit to Delhi to step up pressure on the Centre to address the energy requirement of the power-starved state, also demanded Shinde to adequately compensate Bihar in the event of the breakdown in the National Thermal Power Corporation’s (NTPC) unit with which Bihar’s share was linked.

The state receives a particular percentage of allocation from its earmarked NTPC’s thermal plants, which implies that if a plant goes off owing to some reasons — technical snag or otherwise — the state will be deprived of power from that plant. For example, NTPC’s Kahalgaon stage I has four plants of 210MW each with 38.35 per cent share in each of the plants. This means that if a plant goes off due to any reason — agitation, coal crisis or technical snag — the state has to lose its 38.35 per cent share.

In past two months, the state has been receiving around 600-900MW of power against the allocation of 1,772MW owing to stalling of generation in one or the other NTPC’s units. The Farakka, Talcher and Kahalgaon units of NTPC have been frequently hit.

Pointing out the mismatch in demand and supply of power, Nitish, in his letter to Shinde, said regular breakdowns of NTPC units has not only worsened the matter but has also acted as a huge impediment to agricultural production and industrial investment in the state.

Kumar, who visited Bhutan recently and showed keen interest in its hydel projects, also asked Shinde to intervene in the matter for allocating at least 1,500MW of power from Punatsangchu I & II plants (2500MW) in Bhutan to Bihar.

Of the 10 present projects being executed in Bhutan, six are being executed directly by the central government and remaining by other PSUs such as NTPC and NHPC among others.

Showing keen interest in these projects, Kumar asked the Centre to allow the state to join hands with public sector undertakings in its endeavour to be self-reliant. “We will even invest in equity in these projects despite our meagre state resources to ensure a better deal for the state in power allocation,” Kumar said in his letter.

Kumar did not forget to remind Shinde about the state’s bottlenecks in setting up either hydel or thermal plants owing to the lack of reservoir sites in the state and limitations imposed on the use of Ganga water saddled with problems in obtaining coal linkage. The state has not got coal linkages for Barauni thermal plant extension and three other plants, including Chausa (Buxar), Pirpainty (Bhaglapur) and Kajra (Lakhisarai).

Nitish had also written a letter (in April) to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, requesting him to allocate 50 per cent power to the state government from central generating power plants located in the state. Fifty per cent quota should be given to the state as “home state share” from both existing and upcoming power projects of NTPC plants located in the state such as Kahalgaon and Barh super thermal station.