CHANDIGARH: The Meteorological Department has issued a yellow alert for 16 districts of Punjab for the next two days. Strong winds will occur along with lightning in these places and also light rain will continue. Manmohan Singh, Director, Meteorological Department, Chandigarh said that in these districts, Pathankot, Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Tarn Taran in Majha, Hoshiarpur, Nawanshahr, Kapurthala and Jalandhar in Doaba, Ludhiana, Barnala, Mansa, Sangrur, Fatehgarh Sahib, Rupnagar, Patiala and Malwa districts were SAS Nagar. While the rest of Punjab will remain dry.
He said that it is raining due to the re-active monsoon. The weather will clear after 26 September i.e. Sunday. The mercury which has come down due to rain will not rise much again. There may be an increase of one or two degrees but now the weather has changed in Punjab. There will be a slight chill during the night.
According to the information received from the Meteorological Department, during the last 24 hours in Punjab, Patiala received the maximum 17.2 mm of rain, while Ludhiana received 1.0 mm and Pathankot received light rain at isolated places. The maximum temperature today recorded a drop of 1.9 degrees as compared to Thursday. Today the highest maximum temperature in Punjab was recorded in Pathankot at 33 degrees.
Electricity demand decreased, government thermal plant closed
For the last two days, due to the changing weather patterns, there has been a big reduction in the demand for electricity. Where earlier the demand for electricity was running at 14000 MW, now it has come down to 8800 MW. Powercom has closed all its eight units of both its thermals, Ropar and Lehra Mohabbat.
Moisture will increase due to rain, paddy crop is prone to fungus
According to Harinder Singh, Chief Agriculture Officer of the district, there is a risk of fungus due to the increase in moisture in the paddy crop due to rain. In such a situation, farmers will have to spray to save the crops, which will increase their expenditure. He said that if there is next two-three heavy rains, there is a danger of the paddy crop falling. Due to this the grain will fall and the farmers will suffer a lot.