Noorwala outage sparks row: Power crisis brews in Ludhiana amid staff shortage, protest

Sources noted ongoing staff shortages across grid stations, with reliance on temporary duty arrangements and personnel working extended hours. Unions alleged that only 82 of 192 sanctioned posts were filled and highlighted issues such as unpaid overtime. They demanded immediate filling of vacancies at grid substations and field offices, release of pending overtime wages, compensation for extra duty already performed, and an end to prolonged staffing gaps. The unions also extended the protest timeline to May 24.

Protests by multiple employee unions took place outside the chief engineer (P&M) office. Protesters described the suspension as unfair and argued that the core issue was manpower shortage and management rather than individual negligence.

PSPCL suspended junior engineer Balbir Chand, holding him responsible for the delay in restoring supply after the Noorwala outage.

A major outage hit the Noorwala substation, affecting large parts of Noorwala and Tibba from around 10 am to 2 pm. Five 31.5 MVA transformers and 54 feeders were shut. Officials identified a technical fault in the 220 kV Jamalpur-Noorwala line and rectified it within about 20 minutes, but restoration was delayed due to shortage of staff on site, and restarting the system took several hours.

talks with the government on April 16 failed to yield any concrete outcome, leaving the dispute unresolved and the protests ongoing.

The agitation of PSPCL employees began after a statewide protest on April 10, signaling the start of heightened labor action linked to longer-standing demands.