Oops...It's too hot

Santanu Saraswati

Kolkata, April 23--It’s a classic case of out of the frying pan and into the fire — stay home and get stewed with most parts of the city reeling under power cuts, step out and get sizzled in the sun.
April is the cruellest month and no one has known this better than Kolkatans over the last few days. As the mercury kissed 40°C for the third time in a week, the extreme heat claimed two lives in Howrah on Friday.
A 78-year-old former railway employee fell ill in the Yatri Niwas of Howrah station. A.V.A. Narasimham, a resident of Vizag, had gone on a holiday to Darjeeling and Gangtok. He arrived at Howrah station around 10am and went into the Yatri Niwas to rest as we was scheduled to take a night train home. Soon after, Narasimham fell ill and was admitted to Howrah hospital, where he died.
A 55-year-old autorickshaw driver, Md Mukhtar (55), was resting in his auto at the stand in front of Don Bosco, Liluah, when he fell ill. It was a little after 10am when Mukhtar was taken to T.L. Jaiswal Hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead.
There seems to be no respite. Alipore Met office director G.C. Debnath said the weather condition is likely to remain the same. “There is no chance of any rainfall in Kolkata in the next two days.” The maximum humidity was 86% and the minimum humidity 28%, making Thursday less uncomfortable and sultry than the previous two days. The maximum temperature, however, was 4° above normal.
On the streets, umbrellas and sunglasses were constant companions for most. Those who thought rushing indoors was the best way to beat the heat had to put up with power cuts.
The shortfall in CESC areas was a little over 170MW in domestic sector and 40MW in the industrial sector while it was 620MW in areas under the state power board. Kasba and Gold Park were the areas worst-affected by power cuts. Residents of Ramrajatala in Howrah, Tollygunge, Garia, Bansdroni, Survey Park, Kasba, Regent Estate, Naktala, Behala, Diamond Harbour Road, Prince Anwar Shah Road, Prince Bakhtiar Shah Road, Prince Ghulam Muhammad Shah Road, Golf Garden, Golf Green, Jadavpur, Maniktala, Beliaghata, Belgachhia, Mall Road, Dum Dum, Ultadanga, Nager Bazar, Shyambazar too had to endure at least two to three hours of power cut.
Worse is in store with the generation units at Sagardighi, Bakreswar and Bandel and two major units in Durgapur shut down with no hopes of resuming generation in the next two days. The situation in districts such as Malda, Cooch Behar, Murshidabad, Purulia and Bankura was unbearable with power supply interrupted for over 16 hours since Wednesday.
An NTPC unit at Farakka stopped generation because of shortage of water and another because of a technical snag. The state board gets 730MW from NTPC on a normal day. The state board, however, managed to get 300MW of electricity from Rajasthan and run all four units at the Purulia pump storage. “We have directed the generation company to find out every possible way to end this crisis,” additional chief secretary, power department, Sunil Mitra said.
Durgapur Projects Limited (DPL) has also bee asked to resume generation of all seven units, including the newly installed Dong Fang Electric’s 300MW thermal power station in Durgapur.
The power department has decided to hold talks with Coal India Limited and requested it to consider Bengal’s case as an emergency. The state will also hold talks with all coal supplying agencies so that the state units can have convenient supply of coal to run the generation units. “We will hold talks with the CIL chairman too,” Mitra said.
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