Industrialists on Tuesday sought a permanent solution to power outages with demand for a larger share in the decision marking process regarding electricity issues of the city. They also urged the government to form a body to solve the issues of Karachi Electricity Supply Company (KESC) and its fuel and gas providers including PSO and Sui Southern Gas Company.
"The continued power cuts have caused industries loss of 45 percent more besides failing to the exporters to meet the production and exports targets," said Chairman of Site Association Industries, Adul Wahab Lakhani, at a press conference held at Karachi Press Club.
He warned KESC of not paying monthly utility bills if the power supply to industries did not improve as the government had promised from August 2. He added that the government should also take industrialists into confidence before taking any decision regarding electricity condition in the city. Showing fears, Lakhani said the exporters were gradually failing to meet the exports consignment deadlines due to power shortage and were worried that their hard-earned global markets were slipping out of their hands.
The Chairman of Pakistan Apparel Forum, Muhammad Javed Bilwani, said that the value-added textile sector, despite being the largest jobs generator, had suffered huge financial losses during the electricity load shedding and failed to meet the export target.
He observed that Karachi was consuming least power and gas resources in the country as compared to the official statistics of other cities and industrial estate, but unknowingly the government was not serious to solve the electricity issue. "No bills to KESC will be paid if the power cuts continued in the industrial areas of the city," Bilwani warned.
A former president of KCCI, Majyed Aziz, said that an hour's closure of Karachi's industrial units would cause the nation about Rs 2 billion in terms of GDP loss. He said the government was still holding 26 percent shares of the company and therefore should nominate any of the industrial associations to see the power-related affairs.
He said that KESC was avoiding generating electricity from furnace oil and was largely concentrating on gas production to save money. KESC is getting 700 mw electricity from Pepco to meet the city's demand and the remaining it was generating from gas, he said.
A former KATI chairman, Zahid Hussain said the city's industrial units were employing millions of peoples on daily wage and permanent basis and any disturbance to production could cause unemployment. He said that electricity load shedding was causing huge financial loss to industries and failing them to meet the export shipment deadline.
Chairman of Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers and Exporters Association, Saleem Parekh, Nisar Shaikhani and representatives of other trade associations of Karachi and Hub, Balochistan were also present on the occasion.