Ludhiana, April 29 -- A severe staff shortage and a month-long 'work-to-rule' protest by Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) employees have begun to affect power operations in Ludhiana, with a four-hour outage at the 66 kV Noorwala substation exposing long-standing manpower gaps and triggering a fresh confrontation between unions and the management.

The agitation began after a statewide protest on April 10 and intensified when talks with the government on April 16 failed to yield any concrete outcome. Employee unions have now extended the protest till May 24, alleging that several long-pending demands remain unresolved.

Noorwala outage brings issue to fore

The crisis came into focus on Sunday when a major outage hit the Noor...