Ludhiana: Residents and business owners from Pakhowal Road, particularly the area around Pink Flats, sweated it out on Wednesday and Thursday, with a power outage that stretched more than 18 hours.According to local residents, electricity supply was disrupted on the afternoon of July 22 and was restored only around 11am on July 23. The unplanned outage left hundreds of residents without electricity through the day and night, affecting routine household activities amid humid weather conditions. The extended disruption also took a toll on commercial establishments operating in the locality.Residents alleged that repeated attempts to contact Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) officials yielded little response, forcing some consumers to seek alternative arrangements at their own expense. Raghuvir Gupta, a senior citizen residing in the area, said the disruption was reportedly caused by an internal fault in electricity wires.“As far as I know, the power supply was affected due to some internal wire issue. I repeatedly tried to get in touch with PSPCL, but no solution was provided for me or for the area at large,” he said. Gupta claimed that with the outage continuing for several hours, he eventually had to hire a private electrician.“The next day, I paid a private electrician to shift my power supply to another electricity phase so that supply could be resumed. Residents were left with no option but to find their own solutions,” he added.The outage also affected businesses operating in the locality. Kashish, who runs an office in the same lane, said work was disrupted due to the prolonged electricity failure.“There was no power supply for the entire day and it continued the next morning as well. A few officials arrived in the wake of intervention by the local councillor and managed to restore two electricity phases in our office. However, one phase remained non-functional even on the next day,” he said.Several area residents expressed concern over the delay in restoring supply, saying that prolonged outages adversely affect both domestic consumers and commercial establishments.When contacted, PSPCL officials acknowledged that there had been a fault in the area and said that electricity-related issues had also been reported from other parts of the city, partly due to weather-related factors.A senior PSPCL employee said complaints were being processed through the corporation’s established mechanism. “The helpline staff registers complaints, which are then forwarded to the nodal complaint centre for necessary action. However, a large number of employees are currently on strike, which may have contributed to delays in addressing some complaints,” the official said.He added that electricity supply was eventually restored with the best possible efforts by the department.Residents, meanwhile, urged PSPCL to strengthen its response system to ensure quicker restoration of services during prolonged outages.Box: A Harrowing OrdealOutage began on July 22 afternoon and was restored around 11am on July 23Residents faced a day-long and overnight blackout amid humid weather conditionsBusinesses in the area reported disruption of work due to prolonged power failureSome residents alleged they received little response despite repeated complaints to PSPCLA senior citizen said he hired a private electrician and paid for shifting supply to another phaseBusiness owners claimed only partial restoration of electricity was achieved initiallyPSPCL cited a fault in the area and weather-related issues affecting multiple localitiesOfficials said staff shortage due to an ongoing employees’ strike may have delayed repairs
