In a major blackout following a strike by electricity department workers, parts of Chandigarh were left without electricity and water for over 36 hours, reported NDTV.
The Chandigarh administration on Tuesday evening invoked the Essential Services Maintenance Act, banning strikes by the electricity department for six months after a protest by its employees plunged parts of the city into darkness.
Many areas in Chandigarh faced power outages since Monday night after employees of the electricity department launched a three-day strike to protest a privatisation move.
The Punjab and Haryana High court took suo motu notice of the "electricity crisis", and asked the union territory chief engineer to appear before it on Wednesday.
The outage forced government hospitals in the union territory to reschedule elective surgeries, besides adversely affecting residential, industrial and commercial areas in the city.
"Whereas the Administrator, UT Chandigarh is further satisfied that the prohibition of strike by the employees of the said department is in public interest and it is necessary to prohibit a strike," according to an order passed by Dharam Pal, Adviser to the UT Administrator.
Though officials of the Chandigarh administration claimed necessary arrangements were being made to maintain continuity of power supply, residents and traders in many areas of the city complained of outages.
A division bench of justices Ajay Tewari and Pankaj Jain of the high court directed the chief engineer to apprise the court of the measures being taken to alleviate the power crisis in Chandigarh.
"It has been brought to our notice that power supply to large parts of the city of Chandigarh has been disrupted. In the circumstances, we are constrained to take up this matter on the judicial side and have consequently requested the learned senior standing counsel, UT, Chandigarh to apprise us of the arrangements which the administration is making to ensure that undue hardship is not caused to the residents of the city," it said in an order.
Meanwhile, Mobile operators' association COAI on Wednesday said that the power outage in parts of Chandigarh has impacted telecom towers and disrupted mobile network connectivity in certain areas, and telcos are talking all measures to power their sites and exchanges by using alternate sources.
COAI's comments came as many parts in Chandigarh continued to face power outage on Tuesday, a day after employees of the electricity department launched a three-day strike in protest against privatisation.
Due to the strike by the union of employees in the electricity department of Chandigarh, there have been instances of power outages in some parts of the city, COAI said in a statement.
(Inputs from Agencies)
