The stalemate of the last four days in Talcher coalfields of the Mahanadi Coalfields limited (MCl) owing to a clash between henchmen of a railway siding contractor and retrenched workers, subsequent arrest of local legislator Braja Kishore Pradhan and imposition of Section 144 CrPC in and around the coal town not only paralysed mines as well as normal life in the area, but also hit power generation of the NTPC plants in Kaniha.
Sources said the 3,000 MW NTPC power plant in Kaniha, which depends on the MCl mines for sourcing coal, had stopped operation in three of its six units for the last two days because of the halt in the supply of coal to the unit. As a result, the capacity of production of the plant had gone down to 1,450 MW-1,300 MW.
NTPC sources said coal supply to the plant had got reduced to a large extent due to the ongoing tension in Talcher. While the plant requires 55,000 metric tonne (MT) coal daily to run its six units to their full capacity, on Sunday, the supply had slashed to 40,000 MT and by Monday evening a total of 29,000 MT of coal had been supplied to the plant.
Consequently, the plant had to keep closing operations in the already three units, while the rest three running units were not generating power to their full capacity. The plant which provides power to the Gridco in the State and several south and north east States had to reduce supplies.
With full police security, coal production was resumed from three mines of MCl, including lingaraj, Bhubaneswari and Kaniha but that was not sufficient to meet the demand of the dependant plants.
Due to the shutdown since Thursday, the MCl had to suffer a production loss of 2 lakh tonne of coal per day. MCl authorities said the production from Talcher mines, mainly from Kaniha OCP, was 19,255 tonne of coal against a production of 1.91 lakh tonne of coal on Sunday and sought an early solution of the crisis.
Meanwhile, MlA Pradhan was released from Talcher Jail on bail on Monday evening and Section 144 was lifted in Talcher.
After his release, the MlA said his effort to safeguard the interest of the contractual workers, who stand to lose their jobs after 20 years in the profession because of an unjust decision of the contractor, would continue. At the same time, Pradhan demanded CBI probe into the whole burning and smashing incident in the railway sidings of MCl to unravel the truth. Alleging that he had been made a victim of political conspiracy and police-contractor nexus, he said he would take all efforts so that the normalcy returns to Talcher and all mines operate as usual.
Three teams of the State Congress separately led by former PCC president Niranjan Patnaik, MlA Santosh Singh Saluja and MlA Prasad Harichandan had visited Talcher to meet Pradhan in the jail. They were accompanied by scores of local leaders, including former MlA Soraj Samal and hundreds of Congress supporters.
Speaking to mediapersons, Patnaik justified the stand taken by Pradhan in supporting the agitating MCl railway siding workers. “The MlA has done exactly what a people’s representative ought to do. When hundreds of poor contractual workers were going to lose their jobs, the MlA stood by them and fought for their cause,” he said.
Harichandan said arresting and putting an MlA in jail while the Assembly session was on was unethical. “We have demanded formation of a House committee to probe the whole incident and look into the conspiracy hatched against the MlA,” he asserted.
Saluja also spewed venom at the police-contractor nexus that has led to mafia raj in Talcher coal fields. He said the contractor who had been assigned works at the railway sidings was a close relation of an influential police official in the State and a reason why he dared to set his men to attack the MlA and his supporters who were holding peaceful agitation against retrenchment of hundreds of contractual workers in Talcher.
The district headquarters town of Angul also felt the tremor of the Talcher violence when hundreds of Congress supporters organised a huge rally and held demonstration in front of the district collectorate, demanding unconditional release of Pradhan.