Gas outages cripple textile industry

Gas supply to be stopped for three and a half day in a week.

FAISALABAD:

Textile and other industrial sectors have been facing unprecedented gas outages for the last six months which have crippled industries, said Pakistan Yarn Merchants Association Chairman Salamat Ali on Tuesday.

Talking to the media, Ali reacted over the new gas shutdown schedule for the Faisalabad region. Issued by the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL), the schedule states that beginning March 30, 600 industrial units will have no gas supply for 84 hours (three and a half days).

Ali appealed to President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani to intervene and direct SNGPL authorities to withdraw the gas outages schedule.

Representatives of trade and industry had recently met with the prime minister, who issued instructions to Sui gas authorities that outages must not last more than two days a week; however, SNGPL did not comply with the orders.

Ali also objected to the levy of general sales tax and flood tax and said that the government had arbitrarily imposed these taxes which are unaffordable and would hit the crisis-ridden industry.

He stressed that if the government did not intervene, textile processing units would be forced to shut down.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 30^th, 2011.