Storm bares Punjab’s fragile power infra; blackout in several districts

Aman Sood

Tribune News Service

Patiala, May 30

Heavy rain accompanied by high-velocity winds late Saturday night uprooted electricity poles and snapped transmission wires in several parts of Punjab, resulting in a major power blackout in districts like Mohali, Patiala, Sangrur, Ropar and Fatehgarh Sahib. Till the filing of the report, the supply was yet to be restored in Chamkaur Sahib, Morinda and surrounding villages.

Dept gets 1 lakh plaints in 24 hrs

A senior official said in the past nearly 24 hours, more than 1 lakh complaints were received from power consumers in the state, with maximum calls coming from Mohali and Ludhiana.

A senior PSPCL official said, “Our engineers are in the field since 11 pm yesterday. The repairs are taking long owing to uprooted trees falling on transmission lines.” Sources said areas in Mohali, Ropar and Patiala were affected the most and that shortage of manpower and material was a major hurdle.

The PSEB Engineers Association claimed it had forewarned the PSPCL authorities. It had recently written to the management regarding the “non-availability of material such as cables, poles and transformers, besides staff shortage”.

A Venu Prasad, CMD, PSPCL, vehemently denied there was any shortage of material or manpower. “Despite lockdown-related restrictions, our employees managed to restore power at almost all places,” he claimed.

Farmers’ tents uprooted

At farmers’ protest site Kheri-Shahjahanpur in Haryana, the storm destroyed tents and langar items. The protesters had to spend the night in the open. A few took shelter in nearby dhabas.

Cyclonic pressure

The sudden change in weather was caused by upper air cyclonic pressure, an official of the Meteorological Department said. Rain was reported in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh, he said.