Pakistan Industrial and Traders Association Front (Piaf) on Wednesday castigated the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) on its failure to chalk out effective planning to avert existing energy crisis and also not taking the business community into confidence while resorting to load shedding in the country.
The association's chairman Mian Abuzar Shad told Business Recorder that the country was facing power shortage due to ineptness of previous regimes. "No big dam was constructed during the last 35 years due to which water level is depleting", he said. The government should evolve short-term and long-term policies to overcome the energy crisis.
Outlining short-term policies, he was of the view that income tax notices should be served upon those electricity consumers who receive electricity bills over Rs 10,000. This step would help broaden the tax net on one hand, while encourage electricity saving on the other, he added. He also stressed the need for promoting energy savers and asked the civic agencies to convert streetlights to energy savers.
Abuzar Shad said that Wapda should have taken the industrialists and business community into confidence before finalising the load shedding schedule and suggested closure of different electricity feeders on different days rather than Sunday only to mitigate the industry and domestic problems. Instead of sticking to construction of mega or controversial dam, the government should focus on building small hydel power stations.
The construction of small hydel power station of 10-MW after every five-km on big canals will be helpful in creating additional electricity while the feasibility reports have already been prepared by the Irrigation Department, he claimed.
If the government provides protection, the private sector is ready to invest in small power stations, which would cost Rs 300-500 million, he maintained. He further said that because of high tariff and energy shortage, cost of production sharply moved up which had left negative vibes on our export sectors. If cost of production continues to rise further, our trade deficit would not only increase to 25 billion but the dollar's worth will also go up to Rs 70 by the end of this year, he opined.
The USA, which is said to be close ally of Pakistan treats our textile products discriminatory by levying taxes while Bangladesh is exporting its garment at zero rate. The Pakistan government should take up this issue with the US authorities so that trade deficit could be reduced to some extent, he said.
He also suggested government to set up 'business courts' to exclusively deal with the matters relating to any kind of transaction to protect the investors from undue harassment. 'If the proposed business courts through summary trial decide the business matters, it would help divert investment from urban to rural areas', he added.
To a question, he said the businessmen want to set up industrial units in rural areas to exploit existing workforce potential and check influx of rural population to urban cities.
The Piaf chief also slammed the Shaukat Aziz government which pushed the mark up rate up to 16 percent against 2 percent during General Zia-ul-Haq's regime and 4-5 percent during Nawaz Sharif's tenure. He stressed the need for taking measures to reduce mark up, particularly for the industrial loans so that the economic activities could be revived in the country.