KARACHI, June 25: Industrial units at North Karachi Industrial area suffer losses because of frequent load-shedding, power breakdowns, and low voltage causing damage to costly machinery and equipments.

"There are around 2,500 industrial units, involved in export activity, have to suffer heavy losses owing to poor infrastructure facilities including frequent power breakdowns and low voltage," lamented chairman North Karachi Association of Trade and Industry, Sadiq Mohammad.

The area gives a devastated look as the roads are non-existent, overflowing sewage water gives a stinking smell. But still the industrial area continues to contribute in a big way in exports and revenue and provides livelihood to over 0.1 million workforce at times when employment opportunities are shrinking and very few new openings are coming up.

Most of the industrial units are involved in production of textiles, readymade garments, weaving, plastic, marble and onyx, pharmaceutical and engineering goods. It is more interesting to know that these units mostly belong to small and medium enterprises and are labour-intensive.

The apathy of the authorities concerned could well be judged from the fact that these industrial units have been 'fighting a survival war' for the last two decades but successive governments did not bother to even provide basic facilities.

After losing all hopes for a collective remedy coming forth from the civic bodies concerned or government agencies most of the industrial units started to plan individually and on 'self-help' basis. In order to resolve the water shortage, each unit bore wells with a depth of up to 1500 feet but on a heavy cost of Rs3 million. Those who could not afford the huge cost are depending on tankers to keep their conveyer belts moving.

Similarly, those having good financial health managed to install their own generators to overcome the power crisis, which had been a major issue in smooth production and industrial activity. But those who are not fortunate enough are still suffering and their production is interrupted every now and then.

Former senior vice chairman NKATI Iftikhar Ahmed Malik told Dawn owing to low voltage the industry of the area suffered heavy losses in term of damage to costly machinery. This is other than the production losses and cancellation of large number of export orders, he said.

He said that many sophisticated machinery of textile industry needs steady voltage along with uninterrupted power but this is only a dream for the NKATI which suffered millions of rupees in shape of damages to the plant and equipment and export orders. There is hardly a day when the industry is not confronted with power crisis, he added.

However, the industry as a whole have failed to find a solution to the disposal of industrial waste because this issue could not be tackled individually and needs a comprehensive plan with a huge cost. As a result most of the industrial units are throwing away their industrial waste in open plots or directly on roads.

Sadiq Mohammad said that power supply on high tension cables should be 11kv but the KESC had reduced the supply to 8.5kv, which causes high ampere in the power supply thereby over heating the internal cables of a unit. Due to this, he said the contacts of any machinery some times gives sparks which results in fire and damage to the machinery.

The chairman NKATI also said: "We asked our technical teams to read the power supply and that is how we came to know that the KESC was supplying low voltage." This is not all, he said high amperes results in high use of power which results in higher billing for the industry.

Besides, damages caused to plant and machinery, he said some of the industrial units were totally destroyed by fire resulted from short-circuits and power related problems. Citing an example, Sadiq Mohammad said that Kashmir Hosiery producing knitted garments was totally destroyed by fire caused by low voltage.

He said that two other units - Towellers Ltd and Terry World- producing towels were also destroyed by fire caused by low voltage.

Capt Moiz A Khan told Dawn that the government was talking about textile and garment cities but was least bothered about existing industrial areas, which are lacking infrastructure and other basic facilities.

Iftikar Ahmed Malik said: "With WTO quota free regime around the corner there was hardly any move and seriousness shown by the government towards the problems confronting the industry. He said only those countries would manage to survive in the free market that are competitive, maintain quality and ensure timely delivery of goods.

But in our case, he said all these could not be met when there was no guarantee of power supply which results in high cost, low quality and delay in meeting the shipment schedule.

Mr Malik said that around 30 per cent of the workforce is of women in the NKATI because all the knitting and garment units prefer them over men for being punctual and more responsible towards their duty.