Textile industry needs energy to keep wheels moving

Textile industry needs energy to keep its wheel moving in order to feed banks, provide jobs to labourers, produce surplus exports and generate revenues for the national exchequer. The textile sector's total electricity consumption has reduced to 80MW besides gas consumption of 200MMCFD but the government has terribly failed to meet this little energy demand of the industry, causing 30 percent closure of the industry, massive bank defaults and an across-the-board unemployment.
It is interesting to note that the federal government has given load shedding exemption to textile industry but Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) is denying this exemption under the very nose of the government.
One major reason behind the denial is high political consideration of the government in disbursement of electricity to consumers. The government, as a matter of fact, is not ready to afford public unrest with long hours load shedding and ensure supply to domestic consumers at the cost of industry. Resultantly, the textile industry units are closing down one after another.
The industry circles believe that the textile units would start performing with smooth supply of electricity, which is being denied from May 14, 2009 onwards. According to these circles, majority of textile units were set up in and around 2005 and they have sufficient capacity to perform efficiently until 2025 to feed banks and employment exchanges of the country.
Some textile circles have also started fearing massive bankruptcies ahead. They have further pointed out that many banks have already started feeling the pinch and many foreign insurance companies have started downgrading their ratings at their end.
Further, these insurance companies have started conveying the concerned corners to not accept Letter of Credits of some major Pakistani banks. It may be noted that the textile sector had pinned high hopes with the government before the announcement of federal budget 2009-10. But these high hopes died down unnoticed when government badly failed in toeing the aspirations of the sector. Resultantly, the textile sector has speed up its campaign for two years moratorium on bank loans. But serious industry players sincerely believe that any such measure would fail to turn around the industry and it would prove fruitless in the absence of uninterrupted supply of electricity to the industry.
They are of the view that non-availability of electricity is mother of all ills in textile sector and government should reconsider its approach towards the issues of textile sector.