All units running,power supply near-normal

Train services,which were worst-hit yesterday after the state plunged into darkness following failure of the northern,eastern and northeastern grids,normalised today. However,a few long-distance trains are still running behind schedule.

Bank ATM services were normal and the IT and ITeS sectors operated smoothly.

The eastern grid,which feeds the eastern states,supplied 10,000 MW power till afternoon. In the night,the supply is expected to go up to its normal capacity of 13,000 MW,state power department officials said. Power supply to the districts began from midnight.

“The power situation became totally normal at 9 am today. All the units of the state power utilities have started generating power. The fifth unit of the Bandel thermal power station was the last to get back on the track. All the units stopped functioning yesterday after the grid collapse,” state power secretary Malay Dey said,adding that no complaint of power disruption was reported today.

In North Bengal districts,whose cumulative power demand per day is 400 MW,power was restored late last night after hydel power plants started operation.

Officials said the power generation units tripped following grid collapse at 1 pm yesterday. Power supply to residential houses,railways,some hospitals and industrial units was interrupted.

In the afternoon,the state government announced a holiday and advised employees to go home. Commuters were stranded at railway stations for several hours. Services resumed after 9 pm after CESC supplied power to railways,Dey said.

“We have learnt that Central Electricity Regulatory Commission has identified four states that withdrew more power from the grid than they are allowed. This caused grid collapse. The Regional Load Dispatch Centres keep a tab on withdrawal of power by states from grids. If over-withdrawal of power is noticed,the concerned state is informed and asked to go for load-shedding instead of continuing to overdraw power. In case of non-compliance,penalty is charged on the errant states,” a power department official said.

‘Demand-supply gap caused outage’

Announcing the global association of Indian Institute of Technology alumni,Pan IIT,Y C Deveshwar,chairman of ITC Limited and mentor of the conference,said it was an opportunity for the state government to woo investors. “There are people who will be coming from outside,holding positions of importance. They will be coming here and spending three days. It is a nice opportunity to pitch for your state,” he said on the sidelines of the event. On Tuesday’s power outage,he quipped that it was a simple case of a demand-supply gap. Later he added,“We should not have these. We need growth and energy is very important.” On P Chidambaram,Deveshwar said,“The new finance minister knows his priorities best. I just hope he gets the country’s economy back on growth track fast.”

Small IT firms worst hit

Yesterday’s power outage had its impact on Sector V in Salt Lake. While the software giants of Kolkata’s Silicon Valley struggled to absorb the shock,the smaller companies had a tough time dealing with the crisis.

Suparno Moitra,regional manager of National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom),said that most IT companies had business continuity plans,and only the smaller ones located in buildings that did not have a power back-up were in deep trouble. “Most companies have a force majeure clause with the clients abroad and a powergrid failure can perhaps be included under the clause,” he said.

Owners of relatively small setups were upset at the loss of face because for them,a power failure for even an hour is a huge damper for business.

“My people were sitting in the office,in a dark room,waiting for power to be restored,” said Amitava Ray of Sarangsoft India in Sector V.

“I was in the middle of a very important video conference with my American client. It is such an embarrassment that we do not have one of the basic requirements – uninterrupted power supply,” he said,adding that it would be a deterrent in bringing foreign investment.

Others said it created a bad global impression because clients overseas would pay more rather than suffer inconvenience for inadequate infrastructure. “We have learnt to deal with strikes and other calamities. This was completely out of the blue,” said Abhishek Rungta,CEO and founder of Indusnet Technologies Pvt Ltd.

Some business owners said the crisis was at least better than a political bandh. “It is a one-off incident. We need to learn from it and make arrangements for the future,” said Kamal Agarwal of Exxactly Software.