The hundreds of industrial workers belonging to the Quaid-e-Azam Industrial Estate (QIE) on Friday lodged a strong protest against Lesco for its failure to maintain uninterrupted power supply to industrial units. They demanded of the Federal Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervaiz Ashraf to ensure uninterrupted supply of power to the industrial units.
They were of the view that unscheduled load shedding and suspension of gas supply are causing downsizing in the industrial units thus the government should give priority to the workers' jobs.
Meanwhile, the President Quaid-e-Azam Industrial Estate Mian Nauman Kabir has shown grave concern over unscheduled load shedding and urged the government to take urgent measures to overcome the energy deficit as it is affecting the whole economy. He said the unannounced load shedding is hitting the industrial production while the country has not been achieving the export target for the last two years. If the situation remains the same, it would be very difficult to achieve the export target set for progressing financial year.
He said that more than 400 industrial units are functional at Quaid-e-Azam Industrial Estate out which 70 percent are export based. These units are not able to execute the export orders due to load shedding, he said and added that closure of these industrial units would deprive more than 40000 people of their jobs while government would also lose huge revenue.