Calcutta, April 2 :    Calcutta, April 2:  The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has threatened to shut down the Farakka Power station for the second time as the West Bengal State Electricity Board has defaulted on payments for power purchases in January and February. NTPC chairman Rajinder Singh rushed to the city on Thursday to meet state power minister Sankar Sen, power secretary Ramsevak Bandyopadhyay, finance secretary Ashok Gupta and some others to issue the threat personally. Not taking a belligerent stance this time, the state government has asked for a 30-day reprieve to put together the money to avoid another crisis. Though Singh rushed back to Delhi yesterday evening, NTPC?s Patna-based executive director N.P. Singh, who accompanied him at the meetings with the state?s top brass, told The Telegraph that WBSEB had not paid approximately Rs 55 crore for power purchased in January and February against a total billing of Rs 90 crore. The bill for the month of March has not been prepared yet, he said. The reason for Bengal?s soft stand is that it has been forced to triple its power purchase from NTPC despite a previous decision. It may be recalled that the first time NTPC shut down the Farakka units last October, WBSEB decided to buy only 100 million units against a Rs 15 crore letter of credit (LC) and Rs 5 crore cash payment. Along with this, it promised to pay Rs 5 crore per month towards previous arrears which now stand at Rs 900 crore, including surcharge. WBSEB is having to live beyond its means because its 210 MW unit at Bandel has been shut since the end of December. Demand for power has also gone up because of the onset of summer, but largely because of the dry spell in rural Bengal. The government has asked the board to supply more power to the farm sector to facilitate irrigation. Power purchase from Farakka, thus, has more than doubled to 240 million units per month and had to be increased by about four times last month to 390 million units. While the January-February bills have only been partially paid, the March bill is expected to be substantial as well. The SEB hopes that it will be able to generate enough revenue in the next 30 days as the receipts from the 1998 tariff hike will come in this month. It intends to pay off NTPC with the extra money. SEB officials said they were confident that power purchase will revert to the normal level of 100 million units over this month as the Bandel unit is likely to be re-commissioned in a couple of days. NTPC officials said the plant load factor of Farakka had shot up to 63.5 per cent due to exports and increased purchase by the SEBs. This has pushed the per unit cost down to Rs 1.55. Thus, the March bill may be limited to Rs 45-50 crore. As of now, the shut-down of Farakka is a long shot because the utility has been exporting power from this station. At most, NTPC may stop supply to WBSEB and reduce generation.