Lovleen Bains

Doraha, June 15

Without electricity for eight days now, residents of Rajgarh and Ajnaoud villages today staged a protest in front of the power grid of Doraha. With sowing is at its peak, farmers of the villages have demanded immediate restoration of supply.

“We are fed up of the dilly-dallying attitude of the PSPCL, which despite our pleas and reminders have failed to acknowledge and realise our urgency for power supply. We cannot sit still and have to complete our sowing operations at the earliest. Delay of even one day means a lot to us,” rued farmers.

“Either the employees do not bother to attend to our calls or if at all they do, they demand obligations in return. Why should we be made scapegoats every time? No one is ready to understand the sorry state of farmers in the state,” said another protester.

When the protest turned aggressive, the police had to intervene to pacify farmers.

Doraha PSPCL executive engineer Daljit Singh said: “Power supply was disrupted by the storm on June 10. Almost all staff has been deployed since then to restore the supply at the earliest.”

He said the supply had been restored but would be only till 8 pm today.