Lamenting over the government lethargy, the group leader of All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA), Gohar Ejaz, said that the textile industry was dismayed about non-implementation of orders of the president and decisions taken in the energy conference.
There was no evidence that textile industry-specific decisions would be implemented even 72 hours after the prime minister's energy conference, he said. "Exemption from electricity load-shedding on independent industrial feeders and five days a week gas supply to textile industry's captive power plants is still awaited," he said.
"We are quite hopeful...that the government would honour its commitment with the textile industry in the larger interest of country's exports and jobs," he added.
Addressing a press conference at the APTMA's Punjab office on Wednesday, Gohar said the textile industry was awaiting government's compliance with "very practical decisions" taken in the energy conference.
APTMA's Vice-Chairman Seth Akber and Chairman of the association's Punjab chapter Ahsan Bashir accompanied him.
According to him, the recovery rate at independent industrial feeders was 99 percent with zero line losses in Punjab just like the industry situated in the KESC vicinity. Therefore, he said, it had been agreed in the energy conference to treat the Punjab-based textile industry on a par with industrial units in the KESC domain. Furthermore, he said, textile industry was also providing 15 million jobs. Therefore, it was justified in demanding an exemption from power outages from the government.
He said it had been categorically decided in the energy conference to end all kinds of discrimination. He said that even now, independent industrial feeders were facing power cuts of at least six hours a day.
Earlier, he said, exemption from load-shedding had also been announced by the federal minister for Wapda during President Zardari's visit to Lahore beginning from April 9, but this promise had also not been honoured till date.
Gohar said gas supply had been denied to textile industry for 180 days during 2011 and 135 days since July last year, adding that there was still no hope for improvement in the wake of summer season's start.
He said the a delegation of textile mill owners had been assured that textile industry would be given priority after domestic consumers but nothing practical had so far been done. As a result, he said, there was a 40 percent drop in exports in quantitative terms and 31 percent in closure of capacities.
Chairman APTMA, Punjab, Ahsan Bashir criticised the appointment of a former managing director of Pepco as the head of the body overseeing load management and said he was disobeying all orders of the minister for Wapda. He said such elements were earning bad name for the government by not fulfilling the government's commitment with industry.
However, he said, the APTMA believed in peaceful protest and it had not yet decided to stage a strike.