Winds, rain bring relief, but disrupt power supply in city

Ludhiana: It was a windy and raining on Sunday night, bringing some relief for Ludhiana residents from the scorching heat. However, the pleasant weather also caused long power cuts and low voltage power supply, not only at night on morning as well.
Neeraj Talwar, a resident of Rajguru Nagar, said, “Low voltage power supply was a big issue late at night. Not even a fan or a tube light could work properly. I complained to the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) via their mobile application at around 1am. Minutes later, I received a message that the complaint was resolved whereas nothing had been done to rectify the fault. I booked another complaint at 2am and finally the fault was rectified at 4am. We all had a sleepless night.”
A resident of old city, Rajeev Kumar, said, “My father, aged 78, due to his medical condition is on oxygen cylinder at home. Uninterrupted power supply is needed for oxygen supply. However, as the power was fluctuating, I had turn on and off generator again and again. We all had really a tough time last night as it was a matter of my father’s life.”
Somesh Kumar a resident of Phase-III, Dugri area, said they have started facing problems of power cut at night. And due to long unscheduled power cut, their inverter stopped working in the wee hours.
He added, “Whenever there is a windy weather, the power goes off. I don’t understand why PSPCL cannot fix their transformers and wires in advance to ensure uninterrupted power supply.”
Shama Rani resident of Sundar Nagar, said power cuts up to two hours can be tolerated, but not beyond that. “Attempts to contact officials are often proving futile as officials do not receive the calls,” she added.
Simmi Jain, resident of Basti Jodhewal, said: “I made several calls on PSPCL complaint number, but to no avail. Even in the morning, when the weather was clear, the power remained off. This also interrupted the water supply. The state of infrastructure has seen negligible improvement over the last decade and despite the electricity department imposing cuts in the name of improvement, the situation has only deteriorated.”
When contacted, Harjeet Singh Gill, chief engineer of PSPCL, had nothing to say about the power cuts and the low voltage in many areas of the city. Rather, he asked to share information on affected areas so they could work on restoring the power supply .