ROPAR: The northern region on Saturday plunged into major power crisis following a snag in the northern grid. The power crisis in Punjab was at its worst with tripping of all the six units of Ropar, Bathinda and Lehra Mohabbat thermal plants and major hydro power projects.

According to reprots reaching here, all thermal and hydro power plants in the state including Bhakra Dam and Ranjit Sagar Dam power houses tripped today afternoon bringing normal life to halt in Punjab, Chandigarh  and neighbouring states. The power crisis began around past midnight on Friday (2 AM on Saturday) when boiler of unit no. 1 of Ropar thermal plant exploded. It was followed by tripping of unit no. 4 due to wet coal supply.

The power crisis may also have its bearing on paddy sowing which is in full swing these days. The failure of monsoon has further complicated the problem.

The each of six units of Ropar thermal plant generate 50 lakh units per day and eight units of Bathinda and Lehra Mohabbat power plants also generate same quantity of power. The sources in   PSEB said that the authorities were had restarted hydro power plant at Bhakra Dam and efforts are being made to refuel the thermal plant units.

Alone from Ropar thermal plant PSEB would be incurring a losss of Rs.1.50 crores per day.

The problem had been persisting for last one week, as the plant has no crushed coal in the stock. Normally crushed coal is stocked for the rainy season. Official sources maintained that they would be able to bring back the unit in a week's time. For the last one-week the shift engineers were working in odd conditions to maintain the load and save the units from tripping due to coal feeding problem.
 
The generation at the Ropar thermal plant on Thursday was 257.6 lakh units while on Wednesday it was 239.8 lakh units against the normal generation of 302.4 lakh units. The loss of 60 lakh units daily is due to coal feeding problems. This is the besides the loss of 50.4 lakh units from unit no.1