LAHORE - The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry took a very strong exception to the prolonged unannounced and unscheduled power outages as industrial productions and trading activities have nose-dived to their lowest levels. In a statement issued here on Saturday, the LCCI President Zafar Iqbal Chaudhry, Senior Vice President Ijaz A Mumtaz and Vice President Faisal Iqbal Sheikh said that the government should come up with a clear cut policy on loadshedding as these outages were causing undue loss to both trade and industry. The LCCI office-bearers said that they were unable to understand why the concerned departments were reluctant to take all the stakeholders into confidence on the energy situation. When the government is unable to bridge the gap between the demand and supply it should at least take all the stakeholders into confidence and announce a proper schedule for both the trade and industry so that they could readjust their working hours according to that schedule. The LCCI office-bearers said that the power outages for the industry or the industrial areas should be scheduled with at least three hour gap as in most of the industrial units or in case of heavy machinery, a machine usually takes 40-45 minutes for full functioning after the start up and if the power breaks would be on hourly based no industry would be able to survive. They said that the LCCI had received a number of complaints wherein repeated unscheduled power cuts caused huge machinery loss and the whole unit had gone bankrupt. The LCCI office-bearers said that it was not the machinery loss alone but the loss of export orders has now become the order of the day and it was a known fact that a large number of importers from US and the EU countries were now placing their orders to the other regional countries. On-time delivery of an export order is a prerequisite to win any new order but unfortunately Pakistans export-oriented industry in general and the Industry in Punjab in particular is unable to ensure on-time delivery to their foreign buyers because of acute power shortage, they added. The LCCI office-bearers said that same was the case with commercial activity as only because of the lower productions and a number of businessmen were planning to shift their businesses to other countries therefore it would be wiser on the part of the government to take both the trade and industry into confidence over energy situation. The LCCI office-bearers also urged the Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to ensure implementation of a proper power outage plan for the sake of industry otherwise it would be impossible for the government to have an economic turnaround.