Title - Massive power failure hits Odisha

BHUBANESWAR: A day after the northern grid of the Power Grid Corporation collapsed plunging the entire northern India into darkness, a similar problem in eastern grid caused a massive power failure in most parts of Odisha and neighbouring West Bengal and Jharkhand.

Services of 13 mail and express trains passing through Odisha were affected due to the crisis. "The trains had to stop wherever they were between 1 pm and 2.45 pm. The services were fully restored at 4.30 pm," East Coast Railway chief public relations officer R N Mahapatra said. Services of Puri-New Delhi Neelachal Express, Mysore-Howrah Express, Secunderabad-Howrah Falaknuma Express, Tirupathy-Santragachhi Express, Villupuram-Kharagpur Express, Dhauli Express, Pondicherry-Bhubaneswar Express and five local passenger trains were stranded en route at different stations in ECoR jurisdiction," an ECoR statement said.

Paradeep-Puri Express and Shalimar-Visakhapatnam Express were cancelled from Paradeep and Shalimar respectively.

Hospitals in the city said the effect of the outage was minimal on operations because of inverters and generators. "Since the outage lasted for around two hours, we managed with generators," said Capital Hospital chief medical officer Dr Sudarshan Das. The entire state capital experienced power failure for around two hours. It was restored in certain pockets by 2.45 pm. Six districts of Balasore, Mayurbhanj, Jajpur, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapada and Keonjhar experienced complete blackout.

Attributing the massive power-cut to the eastern grid failure, energy minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak the situation is limping back to normal. "I hope the situation will be completely normal in few hours," he said.

Power producer Gridco director (commercial) PK Pradhan said though grid collapse is not unprecedented, the scale of the current outage - affecting 19 states - was unprecedented.

Pradhan said the eastern grid snapped around 1 pm, causing power failure in most parts of Odisha, barring pockets of western Odisha. "Our men are at work to restore electricity supply soon," he said. He added that all 30 district headquarters had power supply by 5pm.

Pradhan said power generation in Kaniha, Talcher, Balimela, Rengali and Kolab stopped for sometime following the development. "We are restoring production and supply," he said. "We are trying to manage the situation by maximizing production at hydropower units. Compared to the 50 to 600 MW hydro power production in normal times, we are producing 1200 MW keeping the crisis in mind," Pradhan said. "We have reached 1800 MW production against the state's need of 2600 MW. Once the thermal power station at Kaniha is restored, the problem will be nearly over," he added.

Both the units of the Odisha Power Generation Corporation (OPGC) and one unit of the Odisha Hydro Power Corporation (OHPC) were the saving grace during the crisis. Generation from these units continued uninterruptedly.