Power supply was being restored to parts of Chandigarh, media outlets reported at midday on Wednesday after several hours of widespread outages.
The outages began after employees of the Union territory's electricity department began a three-day strike on Monday to protest against plans for privatisation.
The Tribune reported, "… power supply was restored in Sector 44-A around 7 am, in sector at 5 am, in Sector 42-B around 7.30 am, in Sector 33-B around 10 am and in Sector 11-A at 9.30 am. It was restored in Sector 15-C, Sector 22-A and Sector 39. However, no supply has been restored in Sectors 51, 52, 36, 63, 4, 46, 22-D, 20-A, 21-A, 29, 30, parts of Sector 47, 34-C, 61 and Mani Majr...” Reports said restoration of full power supply would take some more time.
NDTV reported that parts of Chandigarh were without electricity or water for over 36 hours since Monday evening. The outages hit manufacturing units and left traffic lights defunct while hospitals were forced to reschedule planned surgeries.
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The Chandigarh administration enforced the Essential Services Maintenance Act on Tuesday evening. But reports said there has been little progress in negotiations between government officials and electricity department staff.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday summoned the chief engineer of Chandigarh to appear before it on Wednesday.
The power outages hit functioning of telecom towers and disrupted mobile connectivity. The mobile operators association, the Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI), said it was using alternate sources to power sites.
