Gas shortage: Agitated Punjab businessmen plan protest

Announce to stage a sit-in outside the Governor House and prime minister’s Lahore residence on Jan 7.

LAHORE: Heads of all chambers of commerce in Punjab have announced that they will stage a protest and sit-in outside the Governor House and the prime minister’s residence in Lahore on January 7.

The protest has been sparked by what they called the federal government’s discrimination against the province in natural gas supply.

Chamber presidents met at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) on Monday to chalk out a joint strategy against Punjab-specific suspension of gas that they said had crippled the provinces industry and economic activity. They demanded that the government ensure equitable sharing of gas among all provinces instead of burdening Punjab.

Many of them aggressively advocated immediate street protests while some said that the government should be given a last chance to set things right. It was then decided that the sit-in and protest will be organised and a civil disobedience movement will be launched later to give government a chance.

Participants at meeting pointed out that gas disruption has resulted in the closure of numerous industrial units throughout the province rendering millions of workers jobless. They said that power supply by state utility Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) is also erratic, further reducing productivity.

Speakers said that they were willing to share the burden of shortages of natural resources but not shoulder the entire burden.

“It does not make [economic] sense that gas is available in one part of the country while another is suffering from total closure,” said LCCI President Irfan Qaiser Shiekh.

“Thirty thousand powerloom workers have become redundant as looms operate only eight hours a day,” said Muzammil Sultan, president of the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “The entire textile processing industry of Pakistan is located in Faisalabad. Suspension of production in the processing industry has grave consequences for downstream value-added industries.”

Naeem Anwar Qureshi, president of the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that it’s regrettable that the government has suspended gas supply to industries in the city which were mostly small and medium export-oriented enterprises. “We used our own resources to build the entire infrastructure, including the airport, a dry port and roads and the government’s supply cut has rendered all these efforts useless.”