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Ludhiana PSPCL employees face heat over power cuts
Rise in temperature leads to overheating of wires resulting in frequent power cuts, said PSPCL lineman
In the wake of constant power cuts due to overheating of wire, the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) bear the brunt of public when two employees were manhandled on midnight of Monday.
According to the information, the two employees were at desk when a couple of people came against a power cut in their area. They allegedly asked them to come along and fix the issue right away.
One of the employees said, “They were from Kara Bara area. We told them that the complaint was forwarded to the concerned linemen, but they took our phone and yelled at the linemen, forcing us to come along.”
This came a day after seven people allegedly thrashed a PSPCL lineman in Ghati Mohalla area of Chaura Bazar. Division 1 police station registered an FIR against three accused, namely Shankar, Akash, and Billa under the Sections 323(voluntarily causing hurt), 341(wrongfully restrains any person), and 506(criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
A lineman, on the condition of anonymity said, “As the temperature rises, the load increases which causes overheating in power lines and melting of fuse leading to power cuts.”
“Whenever this happens, we have to go to the field and fix the wires, but we are severely short-staffed. Only a couple of linemen are there to look after the area over 10 km. This makes it difficult to fix all the problems in time, but people hold us responsible,” the lineman added.
PSPCL linemen looted
The two linemen on a field duty were allegedly attacked by the robbers bearing sharp weapons on midnight of Monday. The victims, identified as Harbans Lal and Joginder Singh were going to Vijay Nagar after receiving a power cut call when they were attacked. “When we reached the Kisan Cold Storage on Karabara chowk, three bike-borne men stopped right in front of us. One of them was holding a knife,” said Lal. “On seeing the weapon, we left our bike and started running away. I started throwing bricks at them when they caught Joginder. On this, they fled away with his mobile phone,” the victim added.
The linemen staged a protest on Monday demanding action against the robbers. They returned to work after getting assurance from the authorities.
