Power outages paralyze Punjab’s rice mills; Oppn. criticized AAP for promising ‘Roshan Punjab’

Amid planned and unscheduled power outages in the state, the Punjab Rice Millers and Exporters Association on Saturday (September 12, 2026) said that due to power outages, rice millers were unable to reload the basmati rice arriving at the market yards, leading to chaos in both the market yards and rice mills.

In a letter to the Punjab Secretary on the issue, the Association noted that the unscheduled power outage has crippled the rice processing and export industry in Punjab, which it said has “created serious crisis and suffering among basmati farmers.”

“Due to a complete power outage, rice farmers are unable to lift the rice, creating complete chaos as they are unable to dry and process it.” said Ashok Sethi, Director of the Association. He said huge quantities of basmati rice are arriving daily and stocks are piling up in markets in Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Pathankot-Gurdaspur and other areas.

“Irregular and unplanned power outages during the ongoing rice milling season have led to a crisis for the entire industry,” he said, calling on the state government to immediately restore the situation to normalcy to avoid any disastrous impact on farmers and rice exporters.

In a statement, Punjab Power Minister Tarunpreet Singh Sondh said Punjab currently receives 1,051 MW less power compared to its share from the Central Power pool. The Center should immediately give Punjab its due share, he said.

Last month, the Punjab State Electricity Board Engineers’ Association (PSEBEA), in a letter to the Chief Minister, warned the state government of an imminent financial and power crisis facing the state’s power sector.

Noting that Punjab’s power sector is facing an increasingly serious challenge of financial crisis and power shortage, PSEBEA noted that the emerging power shortage is already affecting key sectors including industry, agriculture and domestic consumers and the situation is likely to become significantly more critical in the coming years unless immediate steps are taken to increase the generation capacity in the state.

PSEBEA has demanded a long-term capacity expansion plan, calling for increased power generation capacity to be treated as an immediate and critical strategic priority.

Meanwhile, the opposition has accused the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government of completely failing to deal with the situation due to which the common people are facing hardship. “Last year, Bhagwant Mann and Arvind Kejriwal launched the ₹5,000 crore ‘Roshan Punjab’ campaign and promised to provide 24×7 uninterrupted power supply by 2026. Today, PSPCL is asking industries to agree to 8.5 hours without electricity. From 24 hours uninterrupted power supply to shoulder the burden, what happened to Roshan Punjab, Bhagwant Mann?” joked Partap Singh Bajwa, Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly.

The Congress leader’s remark came as he released a message from the PSPCL distribution circle in Jalandhar, which said that “on the way to the acute power grid scenario arising from widespread heatwave and light rainfall across the country, the transmission network has come under enormous stress. To prevent grid collapse, all category 2 and category 3 feeders are being switched off today from 3:30 pm to 12:00 pm.”

Former Punjab BJP president Sunil Jakhar also criticized the AAP government over the power situation, alleging that poor governance and financial management of the state power corporation contributed to the current power crisis. “After the so-called ‘hyped’ revolutions in education and healthcare, the truth behind what he called the AAP government’s false electric revolution has also been exposed,” he said.