The National Assembly Standing Committee on Textile Industry expressed grave concern over the unscheduled load shedding and stressed that it should be avoided at both domestic and industrial level. The committee, which met here on Thursday with Haji Muhammad Akram Ansari in the chair, asked Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) to develop some short-term strategy to provide relief from the load shedding.
Pecpo officials informed the committee that the industry would have to reduce its 50 percent load during peak hours according to the load management guidelines, so that they may be provided uninterrupted electricity. Pepco has been facing power shortage for the last many years, due to gap between demand and supply. Though about 3000 MW have been added to the system still gap exist between demand and supply, however, textile units with 11-kv feeder utilising Pepco power supply round the year and having no self generation have been exempted from load shedding. Power looms/processing /sizing etc are industries running on mixed load feeders which are subjected to 4 hours load shedding.
Chief Executive Faisalabad Electric Supply Company (Fesco) Tariq Hammed informed the committee that a proposal was on the anvil in Faisalabad to construct feeder and shift power looms and other cottage industry on these feeders, so that these feeders could be exempted from load shedding.
Pepco representative also briefed the body on load shedding policy for textile sector. Representative explained about load data of textile industries, independent feeders and mixed feeders and briefed the committee about the status of power supply to textile industry previously in 2010 & 2011. The committee members underlined the need that transformers should be maintained and repaired on urgent basis to provide relief to the textile industry.
Karachi Electric Supply Company Limited (KESC) officials informed the committee that all the eight industrial zones (including all textile customers) were exempted from load shedding for the last 18 months. These zones included SITE industrial area, Korangi industrial area, Landhi industrial area, Bin Qasim industrial area, North Karachi industrial area, Federal B industrial area, SITE-II industrial area and Lasbella industrial Estate. Chaudhry Saeed Iqbal, Tariq Shabbir, Syed Akhonzada Chitan, Mohammad Akhtar Sheikh, Sardar Talib Hassan Nakai and Manwer Lal attended the meeting.
The committee was also briefed about the cotton prices in the world and domestic market. It was explained that fluctuations have been observed in cotton prices through out the world market and over all increase has been noticed. However, the situation is being monitored and at present there is no cause for alarm or any government intervention.