Amid harsh weather conditions, a power crisis deepened across the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir on Sunday as the standoff between the striking  employees of the Power development department and the Government representatives lingered on for the second consecutive day even at the end of several rounds of negotiations.

Responding to the crisis situation, the Divisional administration in Jammu province late evening sought assistance from the Indian Army to assist in the restoration of essential services. The situation in Kashmir, where sub zero temperature conditions prevailed across different district headquarters, a large section of the population was facing numerous hardships in the absence of power supply.

Over 20,000 Power employees launched their indefinite strike past Friday midnight to press for their four-point demands, including shelving a proposed joint venture between the Jammu & Kashmir Power Transmission Corporation Limited and the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited.

The employees, from all Unions and Associations, from linemen to senior Engineers, decided to go on indefinite strike after failure of talks with the Government and staged demonstrations in the twin capital cities besides various district headquarters. On Sunday, the two rounds of talks failed to end the deadlock following which the UT administration came into action mode.

Till late evening, army personnel from the Military engineering services were deployed across different grid stations to restore the snapped power lines while large number of technical teams were deployed along with policemen to restore the power lines as early as possible.