Power outages: Textile mills ‘will not pay bills’

Protesters announced stopping payment of bills until there was improvement in the electricity load shedding schedule

FAISALABAD: Dozens of industrialists burned their electricity bills at a demonstration in front of the Faisalabad Electric Supply Company headquarters on Tuesday. The protesters announced stopping payment of bills until there was an improvement in the electricity load shedding schedule. They warned FESCO against attempting to disconnect their electricity supply and said that officials sent in this regard would be beaten up. The protesters later staged a sit-in in front of the FESCO Headquarters on the Canal Road. They said power supply to textile industries was critical for the economy as textile was not the country’s main export. They said the government’s failure to devise a power supply policy for the textile sector had left the industrialists with no option but to stop payment of bills. The FESCO administration responded to the protest with an assurance that no action would be taken any industrial unit for nonpayment until April 30.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2012.