Patna, Feb. 21: The coal crisis at National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC)’s Talcher unit has sent the entire state into an auto stop mode.

However, the crisis is completely manmade. The ongoing power situation is a result of an agitation by residents of Talcher, who want a train halt at Talcher railway station.

The protest has stopped power generation in five of the six units.

NTPC’s super thermal power station (TSTPS) has six units, each of 500MW, at Talcher in Orissa’s Angul district. It supplies 377MW of electricity to Bihar but on Monday the state received nil.

“The state received 697MW against allocation of 1,692MW from the central sector today. We received zero megawatt of power against its maximum scheduled allocation of 377MW from Talcher,” Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) spokesman and director of public relations Hare Ram Pandey told The Telegraph.

The entire state is reeling under severe power crisis as the board is left with nothing but to fulfil the requirements of Patna (413MW) and emergency services (350MW) first, a source said.

“The power supply to the state capital has been affected too. At one stage, around 350MW power was supplied to Patna. Residentsmay have to face loadshedding if the crisis deepens,” the sources added.