MCCI rejects four-day gas closure plan

The Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) on Friday rejected the SNGPL's four-day gas closure plan and said that it would prove the last nail in the coffin of the industry as a total shutdown would be imminent after the move that would be putting the jobs of over 15 million people and exports of around $14 billion at stake.
"The government would have to reset its priorities regarding provision of gas otherwise situation would go out of hand", MCCI President Anis A Sheikh said while talking to newsmen along with Muhammad Hussain, Senior Vice President and Muhammad Usman. He suggested that the government should set up biogas plants in rural areas instead of supplying natural gas to villages and alternative means of energy should be explored to run the industry.
He said that solar energy generation was too costly to afford for the industry. "However, we can use coal to generate 50,000 megawatt electricity in the country". He said that there would be no need to provide subsidy of billions of rupees, "nor we would have to observe the load management or power load shedding in the country".
Anis said: "We would be able to generate more than one million jobs per annum." He said that the new gas load management plan is a well-calculated and well thought-out conspiracy against the present regime. "The rise in number of unemployed would definitely give air to anti-government sentiments and this single step would throw millions of industrial workers out of jobs. It is not only the industry that would be suffering massively but the government would also be an ultimate loser on many counts."
He urged the government to immediately shelve the proposed 'Industry Closure Plan' to avert industrial closures and resultant massive layoffs. He said around 40 percent 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. This decision has sent 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 industry was denied gas for 77 days in 2008-09, 100 days in 2009-10 and 160 days in 2010-11. "Over 72 percent hike in power tariff in the last four months had made the scenario more complex and complicated." To run the industry on alternative fuel, including diesel and furnace oil is not a viable proposition. Usman demanded that industrial sector should be exempted from gas load shedding immediately to save the industrial as well as agriculture sectors from a total collapse.
Muhammad Hussain said that for survival all countries always rely on sound economy. Hence, it is in the greater national interest that the government should reshape its load management policy and exempt the industrial sector from gas load shedding. "It will be very difficult for the local industry to meet the export target of 14 billion dollars if industrial sector is not exempted from gas load shedding," he added. If this sector is not exempted from load shedding, millions of employees of industrial sector will be rendered jobless. MCCI demanded that the government should accord top priority to industrial and agriculture sector in the larger interest of the national economy. The high rate of mark-up by banks should also be brought down to a single digit for providing solace to the industry.