Kolkata, Nov 2 (PTI) The Damodar Valley Corporation has decided to regulate power generation upto 1000 MW in a power plant in West Bengal due to water scarcity, following damage to a lock gate of the Durgapur Barrage, an official said on Monday. The DVC will stop 500 MW power generation from Mejia Thermal Power Station by Monday and another 500 MW by Tuesday.

The Mejia power unit located at Durlabhpur, 35 km from Durgapur, has a total capacity of 2340 MW.

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"Two power plants at Mejia and Andal are set to be affected due to lack of water caused by the lock gate crisis. We are regulating generation of 500 MW at mejia by this afternoon and another 500 MW by early next morning," a senior DVC official told PTI.

"After regulating, we can manage to generate 1340 MW at Mejia and 1000 MW (2x500MW) at Andal (in Durgapur Steel Plant) for 3-4 days given the water in their reservoirs," he said.

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The Durgapur Steel Thermal Power Station (Andal plant) requires 90,000 cubic metres of water from the Damodar river per day.

"If the lock gate is not repaired immediately, the situation will worsen leading to blackout and will also hit steel production of Durgapur Steel Plant," sources said.

Meanwhile, restoration work of the collapsed lock gate no 31 of Durgapur barrage is yet to resume.

The work of erecting ring barriers to divert incoming water towards other lock gates to restrict water at the affected zone was under progress on Sunday night.

On Saturday, the lock gate number 31 of Durgapur barrage suffered heavy damages and became nonfunctional.

The Durgapur barrage has a capacity of 10.273 million cubic metres of water, which has shrunk by 37 per cent due to siltation over past six decades.

Despite this, the barrage had provided 2.70 lakh acre-feet of irrigation to the downstream districts last year during kharif cultivation season.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)