The Multan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) on Wednesday strongly and sharply reacted to the Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited's (SNGPL) move for three months gas suspension to industry and four days closure of CNG station. They termed the new gas load management plan as industry closure plan saying that it is not the industry only that would be suffering massively but the government would also be an ultimate loser on many counts.
Both the sides agreed that the governments plan to cut gas supplies to the industrial consumers for the three months period between December and February is a well-calculated and well thought-out conspiracy against the present regime. The rise in number of unemployed would definitely give air to anti-government sentiments and this single step would throw millions of industrial workers out of jobs. The MCCI President Mian Anis 'A Sheikh urged the government to immediately shelve the proposed load shedding to avert industrial closures and resultant massive lay offs.
"How can the industry afford to pay the all-time high mark up of 16 percent when there is in no gas for the industry for 90 days at a stretch," he claimed. He said that there is a global phenomenon that industry is given top priority whereas in Pakistan it comes to the least and other sectors are given priority.
They also urged the government to replace obsolete gas geysers and heaters with latest solar geysers and heaters to ensure gas to the industry. He said that around 40 percent of the industrial units in Punjab run on gas and gas suspension means no production by almost half of the industry and a loss of millions of rupees to the exchequer.
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