Though a three-hour power cut is routinely imposed in the urban areas, its duration rose to more than six hours yesterday as the demand spiralled from 1,000 lakh units (LUs) to 1,300 LUs.

Hence, the gap between demand and supply increased from 200 LUs to 300 LUs, because of which the power cuts too increased. PSEB sources said they supplied six hours' tubewell supply to the farmers on priority.

Apart from domestic consumers, even the industry is fuming over unscheduled power cuts. "We had power supply for about an hour and a half between 10 am and 4 pm today. The farm sector is being given power free of cost and we are being made to suffer," said Narinder Singh, a trader of Dholewal.

Meanwhile, the PSEB authorities have indicated that if the demand and supply gap remains the same, heavy cuts would continue. Even last Sunday, the consumers had to face heavy power cuts due to some problems in the state's thermal plants.