As cuts are imposed during the office hours, a Newsline survey found that from 9am to 5pm work in most of the city offices comes to a standstill thereby affecting the functioning of the offices and other financial transactions.

The PSEB authorities revealed that a sudden increase in demand is the reason behind heavy power cuts. Moreover, the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) is also facing acute shortage of gas for the last two days and the two thermal units of the PSEB are on annual maintenance these days.

At the moment, the gap between supply and demand is 250 lakh units and the cuts may increase if the shortage of gas is not met, said the PSEB authorities.

However, the domestic and industrial consumers are a upset lot because the trend has been going on for more than a month now. There are some areas where the power cuts go up to eight hours.

Rajesh Sachdeva, a businessman, has his processing house on the Pakhowal Road said,” Due to long power cuts, I am spending Rs 300 on diesel every day. Today, the costs went up to Rs 450. It is really difficult to meet the expenses. If this is the condition in winters, no idea what will happen in the summers.”

While Neelam Rani, a resident of Sarabha Nagar Extension, said,” In our area, there is no power from 10 am till noon and further from 2 pm - 4 pm. We had no prior information about increased power cuts.”

However, the PSEB authorities give a ‘rationale’ reasoning. They feel that it is easy to bear cuts in winters as compared to summers.