Patna, Feb. 12: Finally, there is some good news on the power front.

Five of the seven units of National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) in Kahalgaon resumed power generation today, boosting the hope of power crisis easing further in the next two-three days.

About the operation of the remaining two units, an NTPC official said: “It depends upon the availability of coal stock. Once we have full stock of coal, the generation in units four and seven will gradually start.”

NTPC’s seven units at Kahalgaon generate 2,340MW power, of which the state gets 423MW as its share.

According to sources, the five units have started generating 1,461MW against the installed capacity of 1,630 MW after the restoration work was completed yesterday. Coal supply was not a problem as the plant got eight rakes of coal through the MGR system, NTPC’s own transport system, besides three rakes from the railways.

“The NTPC requires 42,000 to 45,000 metric tonne coal per day to run all the seven plants at full capacity load or at least 12-13 rakes (each rake of railways carries around 3,500 to 4,000 metric tonne coal) per day,” the NTPC official said.

“The state received 908MW of electricity from the central sector during the day time today which later rose to 1,000MW. The allocation improves in the later half when supply comes from hydel power plants,” Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) spokesman H.R. Pandey told The Telegraph.

Besides getting 1,000MW from the central sector, the state received 60MW from its own Barauni thermal power plant, giving the BSEB a total of 1,060MW at its disposal to meet the energy requirements of the entire state.

Out of 1,060MW, the board normally provides 413MW to the state capital, 350MW for emergency services, leaving around 300MW for the rest of the state.

For the past one week, when just two units were running at Kahalgaon, the state was receiving around 60 to 75MW from NTPC’s units.

The crisis began on February 4 when the Centre all of a sudden decided to slash its central power allocation by 70MW. The situation worsened further when NTPC’s merry go round (MGR) railways got derailed on February 6, stalling the supply of coal to NTPC’s Kahalgaon plant.

Two to three rakes of coal against the minimum requirement of 12-13 rakes were reaching the power plant and as a result, five of the seven units stopped power generation.Against the state’s peak demand of 2,500MW per day, Bihar, which has negligible power generation units, is solely dependent on the central sector allocation to meet its energy requirements.