Patna, April 17: The power situation in the state remained bleak for the second consecutive day today as the supply from the central grid plummeted to 710MW this morning.

Heavily dependent on the central allocation for power, the state has been reeling from severe power crisis for the past one month because of disruption in generation in different units of National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC). For the past two days, the Bihar residents had been suffering because one unit each of NTPC’s power plants at Kahalgaon and Talcher in Orissa developed snags.

The state received around 600MW power last night.

“The state on Sunday morning received 710MW of electricity from the central sector because NTPC’s two units at Kahalgaon (unit 1) and Talcher (unit 2) stopped generation because of tube leakage,” Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) spokesperson H.R. Pandey told The Telegraph.

The Talcher unit resumed power generation later today.

The state is also facing power shortage because a unit each at NTPC’s Farakka (unit 5) and Kahalgaon (unit 4) plants going for scheduled maintenance. The Farakka unit will remain shut for a month, while the generation at the Kahalgaon unit will resume after a fortnight. These two units supply 175MW power to the state.

The state government’s joint venture firm with NTPC at Kanti is generating 70 to 80MW. Besides, the state’s wholly owned plant at Barauni is supplying around 50MW.

Bihar requires 2,500MW power daily. But the state usually receives around 1,300 to 1,400MW against central sector allocation of 1,722MW. For the past one month, the supply from central sector has been hovering between 600 and 900MW on most of the days.