The Trinamool leader was in Midnapore on Thursday, organising protests against the violence in Nandigram. She said, “The Governor has set a glorious example. We are with him.”
Meanwhile, the powercuts in the Raj Bhavan will continue till Gopalkrishna Gandhi ‘reviews’ the power situation in the state, his press secretary Dhruba Basu told The Indian Express. However, slight changes will be made to the outage schedule depending on when the Governor’s guests come visiting. Left Front leaders, on the other hand, continued to snap at this decision with some saying he should now skip meals and walk 10 miles a day in view of the food and oil crises in the country.
But the Governor’s intent is rubbing off on his staff. Dhruba Basu is switching off power in his official quarters while an employee in the Raj Bhavan’s library S K Mishra is waiting for his family’s nod before he follows suit.
Surplus power
Ironically, Kolkata had excess power on Thursday — helped on by good measure by the rain and squall. Kolkata had a power surplus of nearly 300 MW. A CESC official said the situation could have become grave because the thunderstorm also forced a shortfall in power generation by several utilities from which the CESC imports power for Kolkata. But the rain’s cool-down effect did not raise the demand in the city. On Thursday, the three units of Bakraswer stopped generation and another unit was only partially operational. The Purulia Pump Storage project was also not operational. CESC imported 484 MW from the distribution company, 45 MW from other utilities and itself generated around 920 MW — thus meeting a peak demand of 1,436 MW without having to resort to powercuts.