As rising mercury spikes power demand, the heat is being felt by field staff of Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL), who have been at the receiving end of public ire over blackouts across the state the past few days. PSPCL data shows an increase in power demand by around 12% in recent weeks.In the latest incident, Gurmail Singh, an assistant sub-station attendant posted at Sukhanand village of Moga district, was allegedly attacked by the village sarpanch over a power cut. While the cut was reportedly “scheduled”, anger had been building over unannounced blackouts lasting two-four hours a day. Before this, on April 21, residents of Bhittewind village in Amritsar broke open the door of a sub-station late at night, took on the staff and restored electricity supply on their own, after a power cut had lasted more than six hours. PSPCL employees at Bhittewind wrote to the chairman seeking security after the incident.A similar episode was reported from a sub-station in Ferozepur, after angry residents – who later expressed regret — lost their cool after power had been cut for over five hours. It was in 2018 that Punjab saw such major protests over power cuts.Manjit Singh, president of the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) Employees’ Federation, is not surprised at the public outrage. “During the wheat harvesting season, power supply in rural areas anyway is cut from 10 am to 6 pm, depending upon the harvesting schedule in an area, to avoid any sparking in the fields. However this time, once temperatures suddenly surged after April 15, besides these scheduled cuts, many rural areas have not been getting supply in the evenings and nights as well,” Manjit says.Punjab Power Minister Sanjeev Arora says while demand surged from around 7,900 MW on April 15 to over 12,000 MW by April 25, the PSPCL had ensured grid stability, through planning and advance arrangements. The situation should ease from May 1, he said. On April 28, the power demand stood at 10,265 MW despite a spell of rainfall.While rising temperatures are an issue, experts and employee bodies say that there are underlying problems that have remained unaddressed, the chief among them being the failure to increase generation capacity. Punjab’s government-run thermal plants have a total capacity of around 2,300 MW, while the capacity of private plants is 3,380 MW — a combined capacity of 5,680 MW, that has remained almost the same for over a decade. This is around 4,000 MW less than the peak demand right now.In January 2018, one thermal plant in Bathinda and two units in Ropar had shut, reducing government generation from over 3,000 MW to 2,300 MW. Says Ajaypal Singh Atwal, general secretary of the PSEB Engineers’ Association: “Successive governments have ignored the issue of increasing generation capacity, while focusing on purchasing power.” Punjab is believed to have mishandled its power situation by giving free supply to farmers to run tubewells since as early as 1997-98 — boosting demand hence, without increasing capacity. On Tuesday, a delegation of the Kirti Kisan Union met PSPCL CMD Basant Garg and Director (Distribution) Inderveer Singh in Patiala, over the prolonged outages. The delegation demanded eight hours of assured daytime supply for agriculture and 24-hour domestic supply, along with implementation of a scheme for those who want to increase the motor load.Story continues below this adRajinder Singh Deep Singh Wala, the general secretary of the union, told The Indian Express that because motors can’t be run due to erratic power supply, crops sown in February and March, are taking a hit. Also, there has been no full-time Director (Generation) in PSPCL since November last year, when the incumbent was removed over alleged irregularities in fuel pricing. The charge is currently being handled additionally by the Director (Distribution). “Without a dedicated officer in that role, such problems were bound to arise,” said an engineers’ association member.Then there is staff shortage in PSPCL, which means that when a fault is reported, it cannot be attended to in time. The state government recently cancelled scheduled recruitment of 6,000 assistant linemen, following protests over some conditions. Atwal of the PSEB Engineers’ Association says scheduled maintenance “should have been over much earlier instead of during peak summer”.