SIALKOT - Excessive unscheduled power outages of electricity are affecting routine life badly, whereas public protests have failed to move government. The daily 18 hours-long unscheduled loadshedding of electricity was badly affecting export industries causing them Rs1.2 billion financial loss daily. There is 25 percent decline in exports of surgical instruments and 15 percent decline in exports of leather garments from Sialkot due to the unending 16 to 18 hours unscheduled loadshedding of electricity. Chairman Surgical Instruments Manufacturers Association (SIMA) of Pakistan Muhammad Zubair and Chairman Pakistan Leather Garments Manufacturers & Exporters Association (PLGMEA) Sheikh Muhammad Yaqub disclosed this while talking to the newsmen here on Sunday. They took out a protest rally and said that 70 percent production in factories has been affected due to the energy crisis, besides, thousands of industrial workers were being terminated from their jobs. They said that the daily 18 hours long continuous loadshedding of electricity was badly affecting the working of more than 6,000 small and big sized industrial units. They said that despite the repeated appeals made by the perturbed Sialkot business community, there was no let up in the ongoing spell of power outages. Later talking to the newsmen at SCCI, some traders, industrialists and exporters including Khalid Ahmed, M Aslam, Zahid Hussain Mughal, Bashir Ahmad, M Akram and Naveed Alam narrated that more than 350 small industrial units have already been closed by their owners in Sialkot, Uggoki, Sambrial, Daska and surrounding areas. Hundreds of people including local traders, industrialists, exporters and lawyers participated in separate rallies taken out in Sialkot, Daska, Uggoki, Sambrial, Pasrur and surrounding areas by PML-N, NGOs and Civil Society Organisations. PML-N activists staged agitational sit-in in Allama Iqbal Chowk and kept the traffic blocked for about an hour there by burning the tyres on the roads. They demanded immediate end of the loadshedding. DASKA Traders and Daska Bar Association (DBA) protested against unscheduled loadshedding of electricity at Daska. They said neglecting the repeated appeals made by them, the Gepco Daska officials were treating them ruthlessly. They warned to come out on the roads as a protest against these unending prolonged power outages.