LAHORE - Acting Chairman APTMA Punjab Syed Ali Ahsan has said that the Punjab-based textile industry has closure of industry shifts daily electricity load shedding coupled with extremely low voltages as well as interruptions.
Similarly, he said, the captive power based textile mills are facing 16 hours a day gas supply cuts and even the 8 hours a day gas supply is marred by low pressure which is hitting the productivity of textile industry hard in Punjab.
Chairman APTMA Punjab said the energy starved Punjab based textile industry is unable to sustain anymore and 60% of the industrial capacity has become fully on as partially impaired throughout Punjab. This has resulted in massive lay-offs with negative effect on the auxiliary businesses servicing the textile units.
He said the Punjab-based textile workers are perturbed over the situation and the level of unrest is on the rise due to the closure of production shifts in the mills.
However, a mismatch of two hours has arisen since 27th May with only 14 hours a day electricity supply leading to a gap of two hours between electricity and gas supplies which have put the whole industry into doldrums.
Furthermore, he said, the procurement of cotton crop will also become difficult for the Punjab-based textile millers if the situation persists, especially when the new crop lifting is round the corner. It will hurt the interests of the cotton farmers at large, he apprehended.
According to him, the Punjab-based textile industry was quite satisfied with out of the box solution of the Chief Minister during the winter period; providing 16 hours a day electricity and 8 hours a day gas supply to keep Punjab-based textile mills operative 24/7.