PSPCL schedules Mohali power cuts

Punjab’s state power utility has scheduled daytime electricity cuts in Mohali and five other Punjab cities through April 26, with some areas set to lose supply for as long as nine hours. (indianexpress.com) The Punjab State Power Corporation Limited said the outages began on April 22 and cover Ludhiana, Patiala, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Bathinda and Mohali. The utility said the shutdowns are tied to maintenance and distribution-system upgrades ahead of heavier summer demand. (indianexpress.com; hindustantimes.com) PSPCL’s planned-outage listings for April 23 show long blocks of daytime cuts in parts of Mohali, including several housing clusters scheduled from 8:58 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Local reports said many neighborhoods in Mohali also faced cuts on April 22, April 24 and April 25 under the published schedule. (pspcl.in; timesofindia.indiatimes.com) The timing has turned a maintenance notice into a political fight because the outages landed during the first major heat spell of the season. The India Meteorological Department issued a heatwave warning on April 20, and temperatures in Punjab were already above 40 degrees Celsius in cities including Bathinda and Patiala by April 23. (mausam.imd.gov.in; hindustantimes.com) Demand on the grid is also climbing fast. Hindustan Times reported Punjab’s peak power demand touched 10,105 megawatts on April 23, the first time this season it crossed 10,000 MW, after reaching a record 16,192 MW in June 2025. (hindustantimes.com) That has sharpened criticism of the Aam Aadmi Party government’s repeated claim that Punjab is a power-surplus state. Congress MLA Pargat Singh said the state had been pushed into a “severe electricity crisis,” and Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia also accused the government of failing to match rising demand. (indianexpress.com; theweek.in) PSPCL and the state government have answered that the cuts are planned, not a collapse in supply. Power minister Sanjeev Arora said the shutdowns were publicized in advance and were meant to improve service through system upgrades, while PSPCL chairman-cum-managing director Basant Garg said the work had been underway since December and was being sped up before summer and paddy season. (indianexpress.com; hindustantimes.com) The utility’s own engineers have questioned the timing. Ajaypal Singh Atwal of the PSEB Engineers Association told The Indian Express that this kind of maintenance is usually done in winter, when demand is lower and scheduled cuts cause less disruption. (indianexpress.com) Public anger has already spilled into the field. The Indian Express reported that in Amritsar on April 22, consumers allegedly entered a power sub-station during an outage, manhandled staff and switched the supply back on themselves, underscoring how tense the shutdowns have become. (indianexpress.com) By late April 23, PSPCL signaled a partial retreat, telling The Tribune it would limit scheduled outages to two to four hours for essential repairs and defer non-essential work. For residents in Mohali and the other affected cities, the immediate question is whether the revised promise holds through April 26. (tribuneindia.com)