Govt asked to exempt export sector from gas loadshedding

RECORDER REPORT

FAISALABAD: Textile exporters have expressed concern over suspension of gas supply to industries on the ground of low pressure, terming the move unilateral and arrogant.

The government should shelve its new gas outage plan to bring the country’s economy out of stagnation. This would not only hamper the industrial growth, but would also put jobs of over 15 million workers at stake, besides adversely impacting the current USD14 billion exports.

Criticizing the government decision to increase gas load shedding for industrial sector, chairman Pakistan Textile Exporters Association (PTEA) Asghar Ali and Vice Chairman Muhammad Asif, in a press statement on Tuesday, said that on one side government is contemplating to increase targets for nominal growth and on the other side its harsh decisions of gas outages and increased utility tariffs are posing severe threats for achieving the said target. At present, country is going through a very serious economic crisis in terms of escalating cost of production/ manufacturing based on continuous rise on the utilities.

The government should take the stakeholders into the loop and stop unilateral policies and decisions, they said the four days a week gas curtailment would push the textile industry to the wall that was already facing huge problems owing to the high input cost and high mark-up rate etc. Therefore, they said, the government should give priority to this sector and avoid from unleashing to gas load shedding otherwise the industry, particularly textile export industry would close down their operation.

PTEA Chairman said that energy crisis has already crippled the industrial activities and textile industry that was the largest export sector of the country was on the verge of disaster, they added.