A joint meeting of Trade Bodies was held at Sialkot Chamber of Commerce & Industry, in which great concern was expressed against the unscheduled load shedding of up to 14 to 16 hours in Sialkot. It was noted that even the Industrial Feeders are no exception due to which export industry of Sialkot is on the verge of collapse. It was emphasised that export industry of Sialkot produces against orders and delay results in cancellation of orders.
The concerned authorities must realise the special status of Sialkot otherwise the export industry would not be able to survive. It was stressed that the concerned authorities should work on war footing to put an end to the massive power outages, as criminal negligence by authorities is adding fuel to the fire besides mounting annoyance in the public. The President of SCCI Mohammad Ishaq Butt said that matter has also been taken up with President of Pakistan at Governor House Lahore.
The President was informed about the woes of Sialkot industry due to acute power crisis and was requested to provide a meagre 225MW power to Sialkot so that export industry may be kept operational. Similar request was made to Raja Pervaiz Ashraf who also assured that Sialkot would not be subjected to forced load shedding.
He said that the President Asif Ali Zardari has been kind enough to issue directive to the Secretary, Ministry of Water & Power that necessary arrangements be made to provide 225 MW of electricity to Sialkot. However, implementation on President''s directives has not been implemented. Supply of electricity is crucial for the soccer industry to fulfil orders for Soccer World Cup 2010 and other industries to deliver goods as per foreign trade commitments, he added.
We have time and again reiterated that authorities must realise the special status of Sialkot industry to provide electricity so that hard earned foreign orders are not disturbed but no one pays heed Ishaq Butt said. He said that there has been no option left but to protest against the forced load shedding. All the trade Bodies have decided to jointly set up a Peaceful Protesting Camp from April 19 (Monday), at Allama Iqbal Chowk, being centre of city, where business community would lodge their protest against load shedding.
The camp would continue till April 22. It was also decided that if necessary measures would not be taken by their Government to minimise the load shedding and control unscheduled power outages, all the trade bodies including Markazi Anjuman-e-Tajiran, would lodge protest in front of GEPCO office, Sialkot on April 24. The business leaders of Sialkot demanded and pleaded that the President and Prime Minister may intervene and instruct Pepco authorities to refrain from unscheduled load shedding by adhering to the schedule circulated by the concerned authorities.
Any further delay in improving the situation, which is going from bad to worst with every passing day would result in collapse of the industry to end up in massive unemployment, which may create immense social problems. It was demanded that the government must take immediate steps to put an end to power outages.
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