KARACHI:
Twelve hours of power outages will cripple industrial production, warned representatives of industrial associations, asking the government to immediately intervene.
According to Syed Johar Ali Qandhari, the chairman of Korangi Association of Trade and Industry (Kati), the current outages lasting 12 hours will badly affect the fragile industry.
The power supply situation worsened when Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) announced more than a week of maintenance at the Zamzama gas field which reduced gas supply to Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC).
Talking to The Express Tribune, Qandhari said that before the shortfall of natural gas, there were no outages in industrial zones as KESC had exempted these areas from scheduled power outages.
“The new wave of outages will hit the industry hard as production will be cut to half due to 12 hours of outages,” he said, adding that this will be an additional burden as the two-day holiday has already reduced weekly production hours.
KESC intends to overcome this problem by producing power through furnace oil, which is almost three times as costly as natural gas. This increase will be passed on to the consumer. At the same time, the utility company will increase outages up to 10 hours which will affect domestic and industrial consumers equally.
Along with representatives of other town associations, he warned the government that industrialists could be forced to stop paying bills to the KESC and SSGC if the outages proceed according to the announced schedule.
Mian Zahid Husain, a former chairman of Kati, said that the government should immediately sanction an additional 200-300 megawatts from Wapda for KESC. He pointed out that electricity production is stable throughout the country making it easy for Wapda to increase power supply to KESC.
Talking to The Express Tribune, Husain said that outages in the industrial zones of Karachi are unacceptable especially at a time when the cost of manufacturing is increasing. “The standoff between SSGC and KESC has been disturbing and we believe only the government can solve this problem,” he added. Aziz Ahmed, the chairman of Pakistan Tanners Association (PTA), pointed out that outages have already begun in the tannery zone and the leather industry has been badly affected.
He said that Eidul Azha is approaching and this is a very crucial time for the second largest export-oriented industry in the country since the industry collects a whole year’s raw material in the shape of skins. He added that in case of continued outages, the huge stocks of hides and skins will be destroyed.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 28th, 2010.
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