Ludhiana: Outages cripple operations at hosiery units

Jagtar Singh, subdivisional officer, PSPCL’s Sunder Nagar division, says maintenance works are undertaken keeping in mind the summer season so this could have led to the outages

Despite a sharp seasonal dip in electricity demand during winter, hosiery units in the Guru Vihar area along Rahon road have been reeling under prolonged and frequent power outages for the past one week, severely disrupting industrial operations. Reportedly, the situation has persisted despite the power department having recently carried out bifurcation of overloaded feeder lines in November, a step that was expected to stabilise supply in the area.

Industrialists said the outages have been largely unannounced, stretching three to four hours almost every day over the past week. (HT Photo)

Highlighting their frustration, industrialists said the outages have been largely unannounced, stretching three to four hours almost every day over the past week, throwing production schedules off track. With factories operating on tight delivery deadlines, every hour of downtime means heavy financial losses, they added.

Nitin Kumar, a local hosiery unit owner said, “The Guru Vihar area houses nearly 300 small scale industrial units that depend on uninterrupted power supply for smooth functioning. It has been over a week since we started facing prolonged outages almost every day. When we contact the officials concerned, we are told that maintenance work is underway but there is no prior intimation. Had we been informed in advance, we could have planned our operations accordingly,” he said.

He further pointed out that the department had recently undertaken feeder bifurcation and load shifting to curb power outages. Despite these measures, they are still failing to provide a steady power supply. Officials are largely unresponsive. Even maintenance work is usually carried out under planned shutdown lasting a day or two but what we are facing now are sudden and repeated outages,” he added.

Echoing similar concerns, Yogesh, another hosiery unit owner, said,” The erratic power supply is inflicting double losses on manufacturers. We are forced to pay labour even when there is no production. Sudden power cuts halt machines mid process, causing jerk loads that damage motors. When the supply resumes, restarting the machines takes time, leading to wastage of material and precious production hours,” he said.

Responding to the complaints, Jagtar Singh, subdivisional officer, PSPCL’s Sunder Nagar division, said,” A power outage occurred in the area on Wednesday after a Chinese string damaged the 11 KV power lines supplying electricity to the locality around 12 pm. We have restored the supply by 4 pm.”

Regarding frequent power cuts, he said, “Maintenance works are also undertaken during this period in preparation for the upcoming peak summer season. This could have led to the outages.”