With public anger mounting over prolonged power cuts and farmers, industrialists and opposition parties holding protests, the state government on Monday transferred Basant Garg, Administrative Secretary, Power, and PSPCL Chairman-cum-Managing Director (CMD). Principal Secretary Gurkirat Kirpal Singh has been given the additional charge of PSPCL and PSTCL CMD.Garg has been posted as Administrative Secretary, Industries and Commerce Department, replacing Gurkirat Kirpal Singh. The orders were issued by the Chief Secretary on Monday afternoon, even as the government maintained that the power situation had improved substantially with all 15 units of the state’s thermal power plants now operational.The move comes at a politically sensitive time for the Bhagwant Mann government, with long power cuts — unusual in September, which is not a peak-demand month — emerging as a fresh source of public discontent ahead of the Assembly elections.While consumers in rural areas have been complaining of power cuts ranging for 15-20 hours, industries in most major cities claimed that outages ranged from five to eight hours.The Samyukt Kisan Morcha held protests outside the offices of PSPCL superintending engineers and executive engineers across the state from 11 am to 3 pm on Monday. Farmer leaders said the government could not “escape responsibility” by merely shifting the PSPCL CMD.Industry representatives in Ludhiana partly blocked the Ludhiana-Chandigarh highway this afternoon to protest the poor power supply, which, they said, was hitting production at their units. The Congress staged protests against power cuts in Patiala on Monday. The Shiromani Akali Dal has announced constituency-level protests against power cuts on September 16.Coal availability, meanwhile, remains a concern at the private thermal plants. While public-sector thermal plants have adequate stocks, the Rajpura plant has around seven days’ stock left. The Talwandi Sabo plant has around four days’ stock. It received 16,056 metric tonnes of coal on Jattvibeday.Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Monday attributed the power crisis primarily to a shortage of coal, saying the problem had now been resolved as all thermal units were operational. He said the coal shortage was not confined to Punjab, but was affecting the entire country. “We are in touch with Coal India Limited and the Jharkhand Government to seek permission for the use of coal from the state’s own captive coal mine at Pachhwara for the state’s private thermal plants,” he said.