More than 2000 workers of powerlooms held a big rally started from Ansar Chowk to Shah Rukn-i-Alam here on Thursday. The rally led by Khaliq Qandeel Ansari central Secretary General of All Pakistan Powerlooms Association (APPA), Haji Bashir Pehalwan, Haji Bashir Ahmed Ansari and Mukhtar Ansari.
They were protesting against 10 to 14 hours power load-shedding in southern Punjab. Protestors held "sit-in" protest on railway track. More than 1,20,000 powerlooms have so far been closed rendering more than 0.2 million workers jobless in Multan and Faisalabad.
They threatened to observe hunger strike besides besieging the offices of Wapda distributing companies, They were shouting slogans," Mar Gai Bhukkay , Kha-Gai Kuttay". Multan Traders Alliance 0f 300 organisations of shopkeepers also staged a demonstration under the leadership of Tariq Mehmood Malik, Muhammad Akhtar Butt, Sultan Mehmood Malik to protest against the loadshedding which had badly hit their business.
Chamber of Small traders staged a demonstration at Chowk Hussain Agahi led by Syed Jafar Ali Shah, Khalid Qureshi and Shaikh Muhammad Akram. The country faced additional power shortage of 1000 MW.
The sources said that the demand-supply disparity was sharply swelling following the shortfall in generating electricity. Consequently, specific loadshedding timings or schedules exist now and all would depend on day-to-day electricity generation and demand. The sources said that the Discos have been set free now and they are expected to decide at their own the loadshedding schedules.
President of Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry who is also caretaker provincial Minister for industries Khawaja Jalal-uddin Roomi has urged government to take remedial measures immediately for controlling and stabilising the economy. He said that energy resources have depleted and the resources whatever available are insufficient or are too expensive to buy.
He said that textile industry is the largest sector of the economy, which cannot afford to close operation of the mills even for a single minute, as the textile mills have to fulfil various commitments and financial obligations within specified time period.
In real term, the industrial units have been facing loadshedding of 10/11 hours daily. Each time, around 40 minutes are required to put the units back into smooth operation. Furthermore, he said, the supply of gas to industry is below load, coupled with increase gas tariff by 5 to 10 percent. Further more the gas supply to textile spinning mills in some areas has also been disconnected.
All these factors have substantially been disturbing and adversely affecting the spinning mills. According to the sources, Pakistan's energy requirements are expected to double in the next few years, and by 2030, the energy need would be seven times as against the current requirements, therefore there would crisis like situation if immediate measures to correct the situation were not taken by the government without any further loss of time.
The industrial sector, on the other hand has voiced its concern, asserting that the heavy loadshedding is the main root cause of enormous problems being faced by all sectors of the economy and that no sincere efforts have been made in the exploration sector which has not been able to find sufficient energy resources to comply with requirements of the economy.
Jalal-uddin Roomi said that spinning industry is already in worst position due to increase in the already much high cost of doing business. He said that trade deficit of the country has reached to $7.201 billion during the first five months of the current fiscal year and under the prevalent situation this trade deficit will further widen due to short production and export of textile products.
This is a sequel to current heavy electric loadshedding and massive closure of the textile mills. It is beyond any doubt that under the prevalent sate of affairs, the export target of $19.2 billion fixed by the government for the year 2007-08 will not be achieved at all.
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