Concerns not addressed: People allege as power outage crosses 36 hours in Mohali

However, the efforts remain slow due to limited resources and widespread damage.

The frustration among residents spilled over on Monday, as people gathered at the department’s office to lodge complaints. Many alleged that the administration was not addressing their concerns seriously.

Hardeep Baidwan, a Sector 71 resident, said, “Neither are our calls being answered nor is any official reaching the spot.”

Shahimajra resident Ram Kumar said, “Broken wires are lying in our area, but no one has come to inspect the situation so far.”

Former councillor Jagdish Jagga also claimed that attempts to contact the officials yielded no concrete response. In Phase 5, the electricity was restored in some pockets, while the adjoining areas remained without it.

A resident of Phase 5, Pradeep Pandhi, said the power outage, which began yesterday morning, had not been fully restored even by Monday evening.

“Even when electricity does come, it lasts only for 15-20 minutes and then goes off again after about half an hour.”

Pandhi also said after struggling through the entire night without power, his family had to move to a hotel to spend the night. “Despite this, no team from the electricity department has arrived in our locality so far to fix the issue… three power poles are lying uprooted in our neighbourhood.”

A similar situation prevailed in Kharar and Zirakpur, where residents continue to face prolonged power outages.

In many places, transformers have reportedly failed, further delaying restoration.

Even in pockets where power has resumed, residents are reporting frequent voltage fluctuations, leading to damage of household appliances.

Meanwhile, former municipal councillor Paramjit Singh Kahlon, in a representation to PSPCL (Punjab State Power Corporation Ltd), flagged an acute shortage of ground staff as a key reason behind the prolonged outages. He said despite a rising consumer base, the corresponding increase in linemen and assistant linemen remains zero, leading to delays in fault repairs.

The former municipal councillor warned that such lapses in maintaining essential electricity services could amount to administrative failure and urged immediate deployment of adequate field staff along with a dedicated emergency response mechanism.

The Indian Express made repeated attempts to contact the PSPCL Superintending Engineer and the concerned XEN (Executive Engineer) but did not receive any response.