Industrialists have expressed concern over K-electric announcement of carrying out loadshedding in industrial areas during the month of Ramazan which will certainly have serious negative impact on industrial production which is the backbone of the employment in the city. They urged K-eclectic to immediately withdraw its decision of loadshedding in industrial area from 11.30 pm to 6.30 am in the month of Ramazan as the loadshedding would cause irreparable loss to the economy and many industries would not be able to complete exports and local orders in time.
The government must take all the steps needed to ensure generation capacity to avoid loadshedding in the month of Ramazan and closure of one shift must not be considered as an option, President Site Association of Industry Saleem Parekh said.
K-Electric has announced loadshedding time without any consultation with industrial associations. K-Electric is forcing industries to run their units in peak hours' time, increasing the cost of production.
Parekh asked K-Electric to show some professionalism and respect to major customers, who provide bread and butter to the organization.
Closure of industries at a time of high inflation and low growth is suicidal, said the President SAI.
The nation spent over $10 billion to add around 10,000 MW generation capacity to the National Grid to end loadshedding, he said.
It is impossible to fathom that even after investing $10 billion to add around 10,000 MW power generation capacity to the national grid, we are still discussing closure of industries' one shift. With growth plummeting and inflation surging such a step would be economically and socially disastrous.
Closure of one shift would result in lower income for everyone especially the lowest segment of the society which is already facing the brunt of higher prices thereby increasing their misery even further.
Moreover, tax collection would be affected because of reduced economic activity worsening the fiscal deficit. It also undoes the government's tall claims of enhancing exports and delays deliveries of export consignments, giving negative perception to our foreign buyers who are expecting timely deliveries, he maintained.
With over 30,000 MW generation capacity available and maximum demand of 25,000 MW, there is no need for load management. It's well known fact that we are underutilizing RLNG facilities by not managing to import enough RLNG quantities to meet our demand. Simply it's a bad load management scenario. The economy should not be kept hostage to lack of liquidity in the power sector due to circular debt, supply issue, transmission losses etc especially after $10 billion was invested in the sector in the last five years.
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