Long outages force Bathinda residents to dust off pakhis

| Neel Kamal | Apr 23, 2026, 21:55 IST

Bathinda: In a symbolic protest against prolonged power cuts, residents of Gopal Nagar in Bathinda brought ‘pakhis' (hand-held fans) to shame the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) authorities.

Saying the locality faced outages from 10 am to 2 pm on Thursday, residents termed it the worst time to carry out maintenance work.

"We have patients, elderly people and children at home who need comfort when the mercury has crossed 40°C. Under such circumstances, power cuts are unjust. If the PSPCL had to carry out repairs, it should have been done at least two months ago when the weather was cooler and power demand was lower. Doing this now goes against people's interests," said residents Harjinder Singh, Karamjit Kaur and Rajinder Kaur.

The women added that they had long forgotten about using pakhis, but had to pull them out from old almirahs and iron trunks amid the ongoing outages.

The outages were also reported in Arjun Nagar, Jogi Nagar and Rajiv Gandhi colony on Thursday.

A public notice issued by the PSPCL on April 21 stated that it has launched a campaign to improve and modernise the electricity distribution system. To carry out the renovation work, the power supply in various areas will remain suspended. In Bathinda, the outages are planned from April 20 to April 25 in different areas.

Pics: Gopal Nagar residents beating the heat with hand-held fans

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