Hattar industrialists threaten to take to streets
The programme will also help establish an effective coordination mechanism between textile industries and related workers’ organisations. PHOTO: STOCK IMAGE
Hattar industrialists have threatened to stage a strong protest against all-time high electricity bills for the month of August.
Addressing a press conference along with a large number of leading industrialists of the Hattar Economic Zone and the Hattar Industrial Estate, Hattar Industrialists’ Association Chairman Malik Ashiq Awan said that the all-time high fuel price adjustment (FPA) in electricity bills for commercial consumers was a disaster and economic murder of industrialists who were already facing power outages.
He said that due to the closure of several industrial establishments, they were already facing problems in meeting the demand for supplies, the fresh FPA in electricity bills will further shut more industrial units.
He said that the Hattar Industrial Estate consisting of over 480 units and factories was the largest tax contributor in the whole of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the government was receiving billions of rupees in annual taxes from Hattar industrial units. He said that over 60,000 workers including women and others were, directly and indirectly, dependent on textile, food, beverages, oil, ghee, cement, steel, printing, batteries, pharmaceuticals and minerals units in the Hattar industrial zone.
He said that the Peshawar Electric Supply Corporation (PESCO) has added to the woes of industrialists by adding heavy taxes to electricity bills for the month of August which included an all-time high FPA, which they could not afford to pay.
“If the situation continues, the business of industrialists will come to a standstill and they will be unable to play their role in mooring the country’s economy and all the responsibility will fall on the PESCO,” Malik Awan said adding that electricity charges have reached the highest level in two months.
He said that prior to June, the maximum demand indicator (MDI) applied only to the consumed units but since June, it has been applied to closed units which was completely injustice
“These serious issues are causing concern among the industrialists. We are deeply concerned that despite all efforts by the federal government to resolve the issue, no relief of any kind has been given to the industrialist and an unbearable burden has been imposed on us. This is a very unfair, unrealistic and illogical strategy on the part of electricity providers,” he said and appealed to the federal government to withdraw the new taxes and FPA charges and the tariff should be reverted to the rate of May 2022.
He said that a sub-divisional office of WAPDA/PESCO should be opened at the Hattar Industrial Estate with a minimum of 10 workers to tend to complaints of the industrial units. “If our demands are not accepted and the last date for the current month for depositing electricity dues is not restored to the previous date of 28 and 29 of every month, the Hattar Industrial Association will not hesitate to take any extreme step including protests in front of PEPCO offices and on the main roads.”
Published in The Express Tribune, September 4th, 2022.