Power bosses on witch hunting to find reasons of major fiasco

Santanu Saraswati
Kolkata, April 20—Just a day after the major power fiasco, it’s all now a blame game between the state-run power utility, West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (WBSEDCL) and the RPG-run CESC Limited.

While CESC bosses, though a rare show, started giving power updates almost thrice since 4.30 am saying, “Everything is under control,” through SMS, state power department informed that some parts of Kolkata, on Monday, too, went through power cuts for nearly an hour. “It wouldn’t be possible to comment on this issue if one could not give us the name of the specific locality where there was power cuts. It could have been some other reasons,” general manager, CESC, Aniruddha Bose, said.

The state power minister, Mrinal Banerjee, on Monday, has asked the CESC to justify, how a failure in 132 KV current transformer in WBSEDCL’s Howrah-Liluah distribution station could be the reason of tripping down all the four generation stations of the company in Budge Budge, Titagarh, New Southern and Cossipur leading the city and some parts of Howrah and North 24 Pargana out of gear. Banerjee told the CESC authority to submit its report with the state power department within three days from Monday.

“We are not ready to buy what CESC is citing as the only reason of tripping down all its four major generation stations on Sunday. We could admit it if there was a major failure in the national power grid. How a failure in one 132KV current transformer (CT) could lead to such a big disaster? There should have been laxity on the part of CESC’s whole distribution and transmission system. We would not let this issue go so easily,” the power minister told Hindustan Times, over telephone.

According to the minister, the WBSEDCL have the safety measures and technology to save this state even if there is a major crisis in the national power grid. It has also been found that the privately-run power utility doesn’t have that system to import power from the WBSEDCL more than 450-mega watts a day. “Surprisingly, CESC is putting the entire onus on WBSEDCL when it has a very poor system of distribution and transmission. We started generation at Purulia Pump Storage, just to supply electricity to CESC on Sunday, much before we do to cater to the need of our consumers in the district. We could have given Kolkata, at least 650-mega watt on Sunday to end the crisis much before. We have reports that though it took more than eight hours to restore the supply in areas like Behala, Thakurpukur, Garden Reach, College Street, Beckbagan, Sodepur, Diamond Harbour Road, Ichhapur and Titagarh. Supply was restored in those areas around 00.30 am on Monday,” an executive director of WBSEDCL, told Hindustan Times, on the basis of anonymity.

CESC draws power from WBSEDCL’s three distribution stations—Liluah, Titagarh and Kasba. CESC supply the electricity it gets from Kasba distribution station to metro railway, some parts of south Kolkata and state hospitals, while WBSEDCL helps the privately-run power utility to cater to the city’s residential need and Howrah and North 24 Pargana.
EOM
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