SAS Nagar, July 5 - Former Punjab Health Minister and senior Congress leader Balveer Singh Sidhu has said that the claims of the Aam Aadmi Party government to provide uninterrupted power supply to domestic, agricultural and industrial sectors are completely hollow and people are suffering badly due to frequent power cuts.
He said that today the urban and rural areas of Mohali are facing many difficulties due to unannounced power cuts. People are finding it difficult to live in this increasing heat, but the Punjab government is sleeping without worrying about anyone. He said that the monsoon has also started, but despite this, the people of Mohali have not got any relief from power cuts.
Even today people have to spend nights without electricity and this is only the situation in urban areas; the condition of villages is even worse than this. Talking about the difficulties of the farmers, Sidhu said that due to frequent power outages and long power cuts in the midst of paddy sowing season, farmers are facing many problems.
Apart from this, flood-like conditions are being created in the entire Punjab today, due to which power supply is getting disrupted and the brunt of this is being borne only by the farmers and the common people. Expressing concern over the condition of thermal plants in the state, he said that 4 out of 15 units of thermal plants in Punjab have been closed and recently two thermal units - one government plant in Ropar and the other privately run Talwandi Sabo Power Limited (TSPL) were closed due to technical fault.
He said that Punjab State Power Corporation Limited is facing severe financial crisis due to the economic mess caused by the AAP government. There is also a huge shortage of employees in the power department, due to which this problem is not being resolved.
Taking a dig at the functioning of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann government, he said that on one hand the entire Punjab is facing power crisis, while on the other hand, many posts in the power department are lying vacant and the situation is getting worse due to shortage of employees. He demanded from the Chief Minister that the vacant posts in the power department should be filled as soon as possible and the problem of this power cut should be solved as soon as possible.