The Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Southern Punjab has demanded countrywide uniformity in duration of load shedding and means of alternate power generation to enhance power production in the country.
The President Multan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (MCCI), Khawaja Muhammad Jalaluddin Roomi said that Southern Punjab was an important zone of the country that produces 80 percent of the total cotton production and plays a significant role in commissioning of textile, weaving, spinning mills and garments factories.
If the government does not take serious not of prolonged power outages that continue for 18 to 20 hours a day and six-days a week, then thousands of workers would be rendered jobless, more than 1200 ginning factories would be closed, bringing the country's industrial wheel to a standstill.
Roomi showed grave concern over the issue of electricity questioned if the industrial units are unable to manufacture their products then how can they meet export orders and earn the much-needed foreign exchange for the country.
Further, he sad that load shedding had badly affected all sections of society including industrialists, manufacturers, steel melters, ginners, textile and sugar millers and even the agricultural sector was not exempted from the loss.
In a memorandum to the Prime Minister, Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani he stressed the need to manage the power and gas load and improve the infra-structure to ensure regular supply.
Further, the MCCI Chief said that power shut down has badly affected the ginning industry and it was unable to supply cotton to textile mills as per their demand, which had directly hit the cotton growers.
He said that that 43 percent increase in power tariff would result in high cost of production that would eventually destroy the textile and ancillary industry and would lead to cut in export orders disturbing the industrial production in the country.
Room also said that the government has doubled the power tariff in a short span of four months. The increase he said has created unrest among the industrial sector, especially the manufacturers, who were already suffering the high input costs including gas, petrol, electricity as well as weak Pak currency against dollar.
'The industry is already facing severe energy crisis and increase in electricity bills at this critical phase would simply squeeze the liquidity,' he said adding that high power tariff has created another severe liquidity crunch for the importers of industrial raw material. Current political uncertainty has already arrested the national economy and the situation is deteriorating due to the high cost of production, heavy taxation.
The MCCI Chief said that keeping in view the business global scenario, high mark-up rate by banks should be reduced to single digit that could provide solace to the hard hit industrial sector.
He announced to resist forcefully the increase in spread of bank from 0.5 percent to four percent and the mark-up. He said that banks have earned considerable profit and now they should give moratorium industrial loans and the State Bank should issue instructions to them in this regard. Roomi also warned that the national economy would suffer further if, immediate corrective measures are not taken to save the industry.