The Lahore and Faisalabad Chambers of Commerce strongly and sharply reacted to the SNGPL move and termed the new gas load management plan as “Industry Closure Plan” saying that it is not the industry only that would be suffering massively but the government would also be the ultimate loser on many counts.
The LCCI President Irfan Qaiser Sheikh, Senior Vice President Kashif Younas Mehar and Vice President Saeeda Nazar were talking an FCCI delegation jointly led by its President Muzammil Sultan, Vice President Rehan Naseem Bharara. Both the sides agreed that the government’s plan to cut gas supplies to the industrial consumers for the three months period between December and February is a well-calculated and well thought-out conspiracy against the present regime.
“The rise in the number of unemployed would definitely give air to anti-government sentiments and this single step would throw millions of industrial workers out of jobs.”
The LCCI office-bearers urged the government to immediately shelve the proposed “Industry Closure Plan” to avert industrial closures and resultant massive lay offs.
“How can the industry afford to pay the all-time high mark up of 16 per cent when there in no gas for the industry for 90 days at a stretch?”
They said that there is a global phenomenon that industry is given the top priority whereas in Pakistan it comes to the least and other sectors are given priority.
They also urged the government to get obsolete gas geysers and heaters with latest solar geysers and heaters to ensure gas to the industry.
They said that around 40 per cent of the industrial units in Punjab run on gas and gas suspension means no production by almost half of the industry and a loss of millions of rupees to the exchequer. The ‘discriminatory attitude’ of the government was not only denting its goodwill and reputation but had also put a question mark on its ability to manage and govern things. He said that the units in Sindh were getting an almost uninterrupted supply except a two- to-three hour load-shedding.
Pointing out that the gas suspension plan a death knell for export-based industry and productivity, the LCCI office-bearers sought the Prime Minister’s intervention and help for a regular supply of gas to the industry in Punjab.
How the industry would be able to manage export orders worth millions of dollars when there is no gas? What about the thousands of daily wagers who have a single source of income? And above all, they added, how the government would convince both the local and foreign investors for investment when it is unable to manage the supply of gas to existing industrial units. He said that the decision would send a very negative signal to the foreign buyers. “Instead of coming up with some sort of relief package, the industry is being pushed to the wall. The gas suspension for three months is tantamount to throttling the industry to death.”
