February 26, 2003	Wednesday	Zul Hijjah 24, 1423

KARACHI, Feb 25: Sindh government has approached the federal government, Wapda and KESC to reduce electricity tariff for industries in Sindh and make it at par with rest of the country.

This was stated by

Sindh Industries Minister Muhammad Adil Siddiqui while speaking at a national workshop on “Policy and regulatory environment for the micro, small and medium sized enterprise (MSMEs) in Pakistan”, organized by Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (Smeda), in collaboration of International Labour Organization (ILO), here on Tuesday.

The minister said the electricity tariff is Rs940 per kWh in rest of the country but it is Rs6,500 in Karachi.

“We had approached Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali and federal Minister for Water and Power Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao several times for this purpose and they have assured us to remove this huge difference”, he said.

Siddiqui pointed out that he had also held meetings with chairman Wapda and managing director KESC and they will approach National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) in this regard.

“This is our promise to the people of Sindh and we will take every step to secure a cut in power tariff. We will ensure that a uniform rate of electricity would prevail all over Pakistan”, he added.

Talking of water shortage for the industrial states, he said that the demand for water was estimated at 22.5 million gallons per day (MGD) while the supply was only 4 MGD.

The minister said that he will talk to the managing director Karachi and Water and Sewerage Board (KW&SB) for increasing water supply to industries.

“We are seeking a rise of at least 4 per cent in the existing water supply for industries to begin with”, he added.

Siddiqui said that the government has planned to install desalination plant to increase supply of water to the industries.

Similarly, we are installing two solid state waste treatment and power generation plants with the capacity of 5 megawatts each in the city.

He said each plant would cost $16 million, to be funded by the United States.

The minister said the country badly needed the growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to generate more employment opportunities to eliminate poverty.

Earlier, regional programme coordinator of ILO Dr Gopal Joshi underlined the need for trimming of unnecessary regulation, hindering the growth of SMEs in Pakistan.

Smeda General Manager Atif Saleem Malik presented a report jointly prepared by Smeda and ILO on MSMEs.

Representative of the ILO Martin Clemmenson lauded the efforts and measure of the government for promoting SMEs sector.—APP