Ranchi, Aug. 1: A day after the eastern grid collapse, Jharkhand’s districts continued to reel under outages today even though generation from the twin thermal power plants at Patratu and Tenughat slowly gathered momentum. Power officials, however, claimed with generation from the DVC plants as well from the northern grid picking up, normalcy would be restored by late this evening. “One unit of TVNL that was lit up yesterday afternoon is now fully stable. The second TVNL unit has been lit up this afternoon. By late this evening, generation from TVNL is expected to cross 400MW. We have also begun to receive 350MW from the central grid following improvement in generation from DVC plants as well as from the northern grid,” Jharkhand State Electricity Board (JSEB) chairman S.N. Verma said. If restoration of normalcy was slow though steady, it was because equipment was damaged after the heavy jerks that led to simultaneous trippings yesterday. “Necessary repairs have been carried out at Patratu Thermal where three units have been lit up,” he said. TVNL general manager Ramavtar Sahu said over phone from Lalpania that the second unit was lit up around 2pm today. The unit would be synchronised back into the state grid once it was stable. However, barring the state capital, Dhanbad, Koderma and Bokaro where supply were restored before midnight, residents elsewhere complained that power supply was limited to anything between an hour and four hours. In Gumla, residents said though power returned just after midnight, this morning they got barely an hour’s supply. In Khunti, total power availability did not exceed two hours. Residents of Lohardaga, Latehar, Palamau, Giridih and Garhwa were, however, more fortunate as they got about four hours of supply. Chatra fared best. Though there was continuous load-shedding from 1pm to midnight yesterday, supply was constant since morning. Figures released by Eastern Load Despatch Centre indicated that total generation during the day was restricted to 255MW against a peak demand of 850MW plus. With generation from DVC plants as well as from the northern grid picking up, Jharkhand was allotted an additional 350MW from the central pool. However, with an uncovered deficit of over 250MW, JSEB was left with no option but to enforce blackouts throughout its command areas in phases. “Our effort to get 50MW emergency power from the Tala hydel power plant at Bhutan paid off. With the help of the Bhutan power, we were able to light up all our thermal power units at Patratu and Tenughat,” the JSEB chief said.