Bhubaneswar, July 31: The state went without power for about a couple of hours today following disruption of supply from the eastern grid.

However, the state government managed to restore supply in most of the districts by stepping up hydro-power generation. “We have managed to restore power supply to nearly 60 per cent of the state from our own sources,” state energy minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak told The Telegraph.

Official sources said the situation improved after the eastern grid drew power from the southern grid.

Odisha gets 800MW to 900MW daily from the eastern grid. But, the state had failed to get its share as the northern states drew extra power from the grid following the collapse of the northern grid, sources said. The state has been facing a power shortfall of around 600MW. It was getting 2,700MW from different sources against the peak demand of 3,300MW.

Train services were disrupted for about one-and-half hours. Thirteen mail and express trains, apart from five local passenger trains, were stranded at various locations.

The grid collapse, however, didn’t affect work at Biju Patnaik airport, as it has a power backup system of its own to manage the runway lights and air traffic control for two hours.

Healthcare services at government-run hospitals, including SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack and Capital Hospital in Bhubaneswar, were affected for about an hour. Banking operations in different cities, including Kendrapara and Paradip, were temporarily disrupted. Power supply was restored in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and other parts of the state by augmenting the hydro-power generation from 500MW to 900MW.

Efforts are on to provide start-up power to restore operations in the thermal plants run by the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) at Talcher and Kaniha.

The NTPC runs six thermal units with an installed capacity of 465MW at Talcher. Today around 6pm, three of these units were made operational but tripped again after 30 minutes. Only one unit of the NPTC’s 3,000MW super thermal power station at Kaniha near Talcher began functioning normally in the evening.

The unit generates 500MW power.

Efforts were on to restore the remaining five units, said a senior NTPC official.