The industrialists, traders and businessmen of the country have shown deep concern over the ongoing load shedding in the country and termed it a conspiracy against the country. The traders of Lahore also protested and gave three day ultimatum to the government for overcoming load shedding or else there will be complete shutter down in Punjab. They said that it is high time for the government to start construction of dams but unfortunately, Kalabagh Dam has been shelved thus the situation would aggravate further. The businessmen said that the cost of production is rising and it would be greatly damaging for the export oriented industry. They were of the view that load shedding would increase unemployment in the country and it would play havoc with the poor.
Textile industry
All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) Former Chairman Gohar Ejaz said that prolonged outages and unscheduled shut downs are resulting in workforce layoff, production and export losses. He said that textile industry is constrained to run 35 per cent below capacity due to outages and it would decrease output of the industry and would have adverse impact on the national exchequer. “The textile industry cannot afford closure of units for even a single day, as it operates round the clock,” he added. Pakistan Polypropylene Association Chairman Iskander Muhammad Khan said that polypropylene is an important industry and a continuous process. “The industry cannot afford load shedding but our sector has been destroyed due to outages,” he said adding the government should opt for two-day weekly holidays and early closure of markets. “We are in crisis and early closure of markets is need of the hour,” he said adding if the situation continued then the industries would have no other option but to lay off the employees, which would increase unemployment in the country.
Worsening law and order
The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), while sending the last SOS call to the highest level functionaries of the government, has feared anarchy-like situation in the country if appropriate measures are not taken to overcome unprecedented long hours of forced closures. LCCI President Irfan Qaiser Sheikh, Senior Vice President Kashif Younas Mehar and Vice President Saeeda Nazar, while fearing surge in street crimes, said that law and order situation is bound to aggravate in the coming days as over 12 hour power outages in the industrial estates is jacking up the graph of unemployment particularly hitting the daily wagers hard. The LCCI office-bearers said that most of the industrial units had already reduced their working to single six-hour shift from the previous three shifts system. “This had led to increased level of raw-material wastage, making production process non-profitable. Now the leading industrial units were experiencing losses despite being managed professionally,” they said adding the crisis in industrial sector is not only causing flight of capital and relocation of industrial units to the countries like Bangladesh and Malaysia but had also reduced government revenues drastically.
Business community vital stakeholders
They said that a similar situation had erupted about two years ago but that was resolved with the help of the business community who lent a lot of input in developing a viable load management plan. The LCCI office-bearers urged the President and Prime Minister to take notice of this grave situation and act promptly act to save industrial and social fabric of the country. Pakistan Industrial & Traders Association Front (PIAF) also convened emergent meeting of on October 5 to evolve future line of action to cope with unprecedented electricity outages. PIAF Chairman Sohail Lashari, Chairman Lahore Township Industries Association Haroon Shafiq Chaudhry and Chairman Auto Parts Manufacturers & Exporters Association Tahir Javed Malik said that the only solution to resolve the energy crisis was the construction of dams but government shelved the Kalabagh Dam project with a single stroke of the pen. Present regimes they said have failed to initiate work on alternate energy projects. They said that government was enhancing power tariff consistently but not paying dues to the power producing companies that is main reason of the power crisis. They said that business community was patriotic and always played a vital role to strengthen the country but now massive load shedding forced them to take the streets. They said that protests could become stronger as the industrialists were evolving their strategies. They said that a comprehensive strategy would be evolved. They demanded of the Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani to pay dues to the private power producers to overcome the energy crisis otherwise situation would be out of control.