Shahzad Ali Khan, Chairman All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) Punjab, has rejected outrightly the load management plan given by the Energy Management Cell (EMC), putting textile industry on six hours a day load shedding while giving a major relief to cement and other industries.
Reacting strongly, Shahzad said that the Ministry of Water and Power has taken textile industry by a surprise, especially when the domestic load is at the lowest ebb in the country. Further, he said, the EMC was ruining the growth of textile industry by suggesting irrational load management plans time and again. The EMC issued Tuesday fresh guidelines for the DISCOs regarding load management. According to the guidelines, both the cement and continuous process industries have been given a major relief in the load shedding and the textile industry has been subjected to four hours a day closure during peak hours and 10 percent load reduction during off peak hours. The total duration of load shedding for textile industry, thus, comes around six hours a day in total, he said.
Chairman Aptma Punjab said the line losses of textile industry are less than 1% and the recovery ratio is 100%. Further, he said, the textile industry is providing jobs to 15 million textile workers and has contributed record $14 billion to the country's exports a year back.
He said a continuous six hours a day load shedding in the industry would end up on further closure of capacity, which is already down by 30% and impacting badly to the employment, exports and earning of precious foreign exchange for the country. He further added that the hydel generation in the country is over 4000MW while the total shortfall is lurking around 3000MW and the domestic demand has come down drastically due to an end to the use of air conditioners. According to him, both the President and the Prime Minister have been assuring of uninterrupted energy supply to the textile industry while the Ministry of Water and Power was contradicting the approach of the highest offices of the country due to the reasons unknown to the industry.
He has expressed the fear that six to eight hours load shedding since May 2012 and any further lingering on of the situation would lead to closure of electricity-dependent units. Ultimately, he warned, the government would witness electricity-based riots in the country due to high unemployment.
Chairman Aptma Punjab urged President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and Minister for Water and Power Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar to take notice of the wrongdoings of the Ministry of Water and Power and bring the responsible ones to the task immediately. Further, he has urged them to intervene immediately and ensure uninterrupted power supply to textile industry in the larger interest of the country's economy.
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