30 December 2004	Thursday	17 Ziqa'ad 1425

KARACHI, Dec 29: The chairman SITE Association of Industry, M. Nisar Sheikhani has taken a serious note of KESC resorting to load-shedding in industrial areas, besides other areas, from December 26 without any prior announcement.

Commenting on newspaper reports that the various parts of the country will start facing major power shutdowns from January 1, 2005, owing to serious water shortage in all dams, he said that KESC is primarily generating electricity from either gas or furnace oil.

As such shortage of water in the dams has no affect on the capability or the capacity of generation by KESC. By its own admission, the power consumption in Karachi is far less during winter, as compared to summer, so the action of KESC to resort to load-shedding is incomprehensible.

The President, General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz have been continuously stressing on increasing the industrial output to achieve export targets, as well as increase in the GDP.

Under such circumstances, the industries of Karachi in general and of SITE area in particular will be constrained to decrease their output. SITE Association reiterates its demand that self-generation by gas must be allowed for all industries located in Karachi.

In a press release, Nisar urged the president and the Prime Minister to look into this serious matter and issue necessary directives to Wapda, as well as, KESC not to resort to load-shedding in industrial areas, so that they could run smoothly to meet the export targets fixed by the government, as well as domestic requirements.