Purchase of 100,000 sewing machines: SMA seeks help for withdrawal of PSI condition

Sewing Machine Association (SMA) on Thursday sought Chief Minister's help for withdrawal of PSI condition for purchase of 100,000 sewing machines to be distributed among the deserving skilled women by the Punjab government. The demand was jointly raised by Chairman Cottage Industry and Small Traders Ghulam Sarwar Malik, President Sewing Machine Association, Chaudhry Javaid Iqbal, Vice President, Saeed Qaiser and others at a meeting held here at Association Head Office.
They said that they had meeting with concerned officials at Small Industries Office on October 15 and informed them of the unrest among 450 Punjab machine manufacturers because of PSI condition. They said that this Punjab Standard Institute has nothing to do with local purchases as it was a condition applied on machine exporters for export purposes. They were of the view that Chief Minister vision to strengthen small businesses is being destroyed intentionally as when only one or two companies would be supplying 100,000 machines to the government the remaining over four hundred machine manufacturers in the province would sitting idle with an ultimate result of more unemployment and joblessness.
The Machine Association leaders said that they would be charging no profit on their machines if the tender is rightly distributed among all the manufacturers as they understand that the very purpose of this mass purchase is to create self employment opportunities for the poor and deserving women.
The Association leaders also met with the LCCI Vice President Mian Abuzar Shad and informed him of the ramifications if the tender goes to some machine manufacturer giant. The LCCI vice president assured them of their full support and promised to take up the issue with the concerned department to save the small businesses and entire cottage industry.