Gas loadshedding: over 600 industrial units closed for 96 hours

More than 600 industrial units, most of them belonging to textile sector, were closed here on Sunday under new gas load shedding schedule of Sui Northern Gas Pipelines (SNGPL), which will continue till 6 am on February 3, approximately 96 hours, which will affect 400,000 workers, most of them daily wagers.
Talking to newsmen, Salamat Ali, Chairman of Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers & Exporters Association (PHMA) North Zone, said that the textile industry had already suffered due massive gas load shedding during last three months, which shows that gas suspension to the Punjab industry is a well planned conspiracy. The industrial activities were already frozen because of mismanagement and unfriendly course of action of the present regime while the worst gas shortage threw more fuel to the fire, he added.
During January 2011, he said, SNGPL had provided gas to the industrial units, with low pressure, for only seven days. Resultantly, industries of Faisalabad region were closed for 24 days in the current month due to gas load shedding.
During December 2010, gas load shedding continued for 22 days for industrial sector. Textile export worth millions of dollars from upcountry have been hit by gas load shedding coupled with electricity absence, rendering labour, most of them daily wagers, jobless, he added.
Salamat said that if the existent threats of gas and electricity load shedding, high mark-up rates, high inflation rates, and the ever deteriorating law & order situation were not enough for the industrial sector, which was barely surviving given the circumstances; this new threat of financial crisis will cripple the industry plus market money circle altogether unless immediate action is taken by the government to resolve very critical issues.
He demanded that decision of 4-6 days gas load shedding should be taken back immediately and gas should be supplied to the Punjab industries for at least 5 days a week. Decisions of Prime Minister should be implemented across the board with any provincial discrimination, he added.
PHMA North Zone also expressed grave concern over State Bank of Pakistan's (SBP) Monetary Policy and said that the high mark-up rate was kept unchanged against expectations of a 50 basis points reduction, while a weak economy exercise continues to give a double blow to borrowers' payment capacity. He said that interest rate is highest in Pakistan as compared to the rest of the world and the textile exporters have become uncompetitive in export market due to massive overheads.
He said that the Monetary Policy stifles investment and trade activities in the country and has previously hampered growth of export oriented and labour-intensive value-added textile sector in the country, especially in Punjab.
When the energy crisis had started, he said, the government had asked industrialists to install CPPs, using furnace oil, to meet their requirements. But with the passage of time the cost of furnace oil increased and the government asked the industrialists to shift CPPs to gas. Industrialists made huge investment and transferred their power generation units to gas. Now gas is not available and the industrialists are in a fix to meet their requirements, he said.
Saeed Ahmad, Regional Chairman, All Pakistan Textile Processing Mills Association, Abdul Haq, Chairman, Muhammad Akram Ghouri, Vice Chairman, All Pakistan Cotton Power looms Association, Shahid Razzaq Sikka, President, Anjuman-e-Tajran, Ajmal Farooq, Vice Chairman, Khurrianwala Industrial Estate, and other leaders of trade sector expressed concerns over the monetary policy, announced by the Governor, State Bank of Pakistan. They said that the central bank has finally decided not to make an unrealistic move to keep on increasing discount rates "which was resulting in mounting NPLs (non-performing loans)." They said that it is the need of the hour to reduce and gradually bring the interest rate down to single digit but SBP has maintained the 14 percent bank rate without any justification.