Business community slams gas curtailment plan

LAHORE: The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) was given a free hand by all the Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Punjab and industrial associations in an emergent meeting on Saturday.
They authorised the LCCI to take any extreme step if the government failed to form a uniform policy of gas curtailment for all provinces and was unable to fulfill this demand within a week. This was decided in a meeting of ten leading Chambers of Commerce and a large number of industrial associations of the province to discuss the ongoing gas crisis that had crippled both the trade and the industry.
The next meeting of all chambers and associations would be held in Gujranwala. The gas curtailment had shown its injurious impact as industries in the province were approaching a total default and failure of the government to take corrective measures could consequently halt the payment of federal and provincial taxes.
The LCCI President Shahzad Ali Malik, in his address, asked all Chambers and Associations to forward their proposals to the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry so that the same could be presented to the government for implementation.
He was irked at the situation and stated that it was unfortunate that the stakeholders were always kept away from issues related to policy making of trade and industry and stressed the need of taking stakeholders onboard while economy-related issues were being discussed.
He stated that gas curtailment had not only impacted the trade and industry, but the law and order situation had also gone worse with the surge in the graph of unemployment. The LCCI President urged the need to form a mechanism to stop gas pilferage which had now reached more than seven per cent as compared to a meager five percent in previous years.
He was disgruntled that the LNG import project was still in the air and believed that work on this project should be expedited without any further delay. The Punjab chambers and associations, while assuring full support to the Lahore Chamber of commerce and Industry, deplored the non-serious attitude of the government towards the gas crisis.
They asked the government to form a schedule for load management which is acceptable in all parts of the country. They said that gas load-shedding in Punjab was unjustified and was dampening the sale of goods even in the domestic market. They expressed hope that the government would restore to fair practices in this regard within a week and warned of protests and agitations if demands were not met. However, they made it clear that a final decision in this regard would be taken by a committee formed by the chambers after the deadline of one week expires.
The trade and Industry leaders were also agitated and said that their businesses were facing a slump due to an acute shortage of gas. They claimed that the situation had worsened and blamed the SNGPL for acting as a deaf ear unlike the Sui Southern Gas Company in Sindh. They viewed that the priority should be given to the industries over other consumers in situation of gas shortages as the industry provided employment to millions of people.
They asserted that acceleration in rates of manufactured products was also a cause of the shortage of gas. The surge in prices was inevitable as production of the same products through alternate fuel had substantially increased the cost of production.
It was unfortunate that gas supply to the industry of Punjab had remained suspended for 40 days during the six months from April 15 to October 15, 2010 on account of a one day per week suspension of gas as decided by the Energy Summit held in April this year. The gas supply was curtailed for another 16 days on various occasions during the period due to the closure of different gas fields for annual maintenance.