Bihar would add 540MW to its power kitty with the inauguration of two plants — 660MW unit of Barh Super Thermal Power Station (STPS) and 110MW unit of Muzaffarpur Thermal Power Station — on Saturday.

Bihar would get 99.5MW more than the agreed 50 per cent from Barh plant’s unit number I (660MW) as Bengal has relinquished its share of 199MW from Barh’s Stage II (the two stages would together generate 1,320MW).

In March 2012, the Centre had allocated 50 per cent of power from Barh’s phase II plant, 60km east of Patna, to Bihar as “home state share”.

But with Bengal having relinquished its share, possibly because it has arranged for power from elsewhere, Bihar would now get 65 per cent or 429.5MW power from Barh. Another 110MW would come from the Muzaffarpur plant.

The Barh unit would provide power to Bihar, Bengal, Odisha and states in the Northeast.

The formal inauguration of the two plants on Saturday — at Barh in Patna and Kanti in Muzaffarpur — by Union power minister Piyush Goyal and chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, would not only help meet increasing power requirements but also reduce the state’s dependency on central sector allocation and purchases from the open market.

A host of Union ministers from Bihar, including Ravi Shankar Prasad, Radha Mohan Singh, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Giriraj Singh and Ram Kripal Yadav, would also be present at the formal inauguration functions on Saturday.

But former chief minister Nitish Kumar, who as Union minister played a pivotal role in bringing the plant to Barh, would be busy with his Sampark Yatra.

Then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had laid the foundation stone of the main plant of Stage I on March 6, 1999. Nitish, who was Barh MP, took the initiative to bring a major power plant based on super critical technology to the state.

The unit at Kanti in Muzaffarpur was installed way back in 1978 and would see the light of day after 11 years. The chimney shut down in 2003 because of a technical snag and had not been revived till now.

The state government and National Thermal Power Station (NTPC) reached an agreement in 2005 to renovate and modernise both units of Kanti Thermal Power Station, having capacity of 110 MW each.

NTPC began renovating and modernising both units in 2008. The first unit started producing electricity in 2013. NTPC spent Rs 471 crore on renovating and modernising the two units.

Now, it is the turn of the second 110MW power unit to be commercially available, Muzaffarpur district magistrate Anupam Kumar said.

District authorities, including Anupam Kumar and senior superintendent of police (SSP) Ranjit Kumar Mishra, inspected the site of the second unit inside MTPS as also the venue from which JDU and BJP leaders will subsequently address the public.

Talking about the guests arriving from New Delhi, district BJP chief Arvind Kumar Singh said he has received the itinerary of the MPs from Bihar who were recently inducted into the Union ministry by Narendra Modi.