Textile industry to get subsidised furnace oil: gas on rotational basis during winter

The government will provide subsidised furnace oil to the textile industry for three months and divide textile industry into different zones to provide gas on rotational basis this winter, well placed sources told Business Recorder on Thursday. The government assured the textile industry that it would provide surplus furnace oil for the captive power plants (CPPs) during the peak winter months.
This was decided in a meeting held here in which delegates of the All Pakistan Textile Manufacturing Association (APTMA), Readymade Garment Association (RGA) and Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturing Association (PHMA), led by Minister for Textile Industry Rana M. Farooq Saeed Khan, called on Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Syed Naveed Qamar. The delegation also took up the issue of gas load management of gas with Syed Naveed Qamar.
Sources said that according to a rotational formula, the textile industries would be divided into different zones to provide gas on weekly basis. The Petroleum Minister also assured the delegation that the government would provide subsidised furnace oil to the textile industries, which would be imported through Pakistan State Oil (PSO), to pre-empt the gas crisis in the three peak months during the upcoming winter season.
The sources said that the Petroleum Minister asked the Textile Ministry to complete a working paper and point out the requirements of the furnace oil for the textile industry. Last year, all the textile units were closed due to gas loadshedding, but now the government had planned a weekly programme to ensure gas supply to the industry on rotation basis.
Naveed Qamar directed the authorities to prepare the load management plan after consulting all the stakeholders to avert any crises, the sources added. The delegation also called on the Federal Minister for Water and Power Raja Parvaiz Ashraf and discussed with him power issues. The delegation took up the issue of electricity loadshedding and rationalisation of textile tariff with the Minister for Water and Power.
The textile sector was exempted from the electricity loadshedding in the recently announced textile policy. The textile industrialists complained that the authority was reluctant to buy power, generated by the captive power plants. On this, Raja Parvaiz Ashraf directed the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) to buy excess electricity from the textile industry.
The sources further said that in the meeting it was agreed that the Pepco would finalise the schedule of loadshedding after discussing the same with the textile stakeholders. Representatives of the textile industry will be placed on the advisory boards of all the Discos and a meeting on this issue would be held in Wapda House on Wednesday next.