Punjab: Textile mills face up to 10-hour outages
Workers being laid off due to low productivity.
LAHORE:
Perturbed by 8 to 10 hours of load-shedding in a day, the textile millers have called on the government to supply power without any interruption to the industries of Punjab which are teetering on the verge of collapse.
In a statement, All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) Chairman Ahsan Bashir said the industry running on independent and group feeders was being subjected to 8 to 10 hours of unannounced outages compared to announced load-shedding for four hours. The industry was being denied power supply at a time when gas supply was heavily curtailed due to cold weather, he said, adding this was leading to excessive shift closures and layoffs across the industry in Punjab.
Bashir claimed that the textile mills, which required electricity round the clock, were timely paying utility bills with minimum line losses, but said the government was not giving priority to the industry.
He feared that textile exports, which had dropped 35-40% in six months to December 2011 in quantitative terms, might fall $300 million per month in the second half (January-June) of 2011-12 because of energy shortage.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 18th, 2012.
Perturbed by 8 to 10 hours of load-shedding in a day, the textile millers have called on the government to supply power without any interruption to the industries of Punjab which are teetering on the verge of collapse.
In a statement, All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) Chairman Ahsan Bashir said the industry running on independent and group feeders was being subjected to 8 to 10 hours of unannounced outages compared to announced load-shedding for four hours. The industry was being denied power supply at a time when gas supply was heavily curtailed due to cold weather, he said, adding this was leading to excessive shift closures and layoffs across the industry in Punjab.
Bashir claimed that the textile mills, which required electricity round the clock, were timely paying utility bills with minimum line losses, but said the government was not giving priority to the industry.
He feared that textile exports, which had dropped 35-40% in six months to December 2011 in quantitative terms, might fall $300 million per month in the second half (January-June) of 2011-12 because of energy shortage.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 18th, 2012.