Thousands industrial workers, including daily wagers on Monday blocked roads as a protest against prolonged power outage in Sialkot, which is a hub of cottage industry and only export-oriented city of the country. The protesters blocked main points of highways as a result of which traffic on Sialkot-Daska, Sialkot-Head Marala and Sialkot-Wazirabad sections remained suspended for several hours.
Addressing a big protest rally at China Chowk President Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) Naeem Anwar Qureshi announced that load shedding was not stopped within 72 hours in Sialkot, shutter down call would be made for pressing the demand of exporters, traders and manufacturers, adding that over 10 lakh workers as well as industrialists, traders and manufacturers will take part in the protest against prolonged outage of electricity. The prolong load shedding hitting production activities adversely and exporter community facing serious hardships in fulfilling the foreign orders on scheduled time, Naeem Qureshi said. The SCCI President further said that in next phase industry and Anjuman-e-Tajiran would stop payment of electricity bills until and unless load shedding is eliminated in Sialkot.
Some other speakers while addressing the rally strongly criticised the government and said that unscheduled power load shedding hits normal life of the common man and industrial productivity in this export-oriented city and hub of cottage industry of the country, and contributing handsome foreign exchange amounting to US 1. 25 billion dollars to the national exchequer annually.
More than 16 hours load shedding had crippled the industrial sector while vendors industry is on the verge of collapse and industrial workers working on daily wages suffering adversely as government had snatched their bread and butter, they said.
The unscheduled load shedding generating unemployment, street crime and other social evils in the society and if situation remained the same than it will be too difficult for the government to tackle the twister of unemployment and crime. Some exporters while expressing their views said that it seems that electricity load shedding was intestinally being carried out in the export-oriented city and hub of cottage industry of the country just to ruin the unique export culture of Sialkot. The protesters peacefully terminated after loading protest against prolonged load shedding at Industrial Estate, Kashmir road and China Chowk.