August 10, 2007	Friday	Rajab 25, 1428

KARACHI, Aug 7: Acute power crisis combined with water shortage have crippled production activity in five industrial estates of the city resulting in loss of export contracts worth millions of dollars daily, industry sources claimed.

There are power outages in industrial areas ranging from six to eight hours. This means that the industry loses around 180 production hours per month and is presently running at 60 per cent of its capacity.

Industry sources further said that when there was load-shedding or power breakdown it took hours to restart plants and bring the entire production-line back to normal. Consequently, loss in industrial production in real terms comes much higher.

The industry is suffering on two accounts, firstly because of load- shedding and secondly due to less productivity given by workers, who come to work after sleepless nights owing to unscheduled load-shedding in residential areas of the city.

North Karachi Industrial Area Chairman Faraz Mirza told Dawn that industrial activity was smooth up to June as there was no load-shedding of power in industrial areas. However, since July, besides load-shedding there had been massive power breakdowns causing production loss.

He further said that since most of the units in North Karachi were SMEs, they could not afford to have their own power generating facility and have to totally depend on KESC’s power supply.

There are around 2,000 to 2,500 units engaged in production of home textiles, towels, garments, marble and pharmaceuticals and were mostly export-oriented.

Federal B Industrial Area Chairman Masroor Ahmed Alvi said since last 45 days the industry was facing massive load-shedding and power breakdowns. Despite repeated assurances from the KESC’s high-ups for providing one window service for lodging complains no progress had been made so far.

As a result of this, Mr Alvi continued, even today “our members have to approach different centres for different problems and this adds to our miseries.”

He said there were around 2,000 units of small and medium size with 80 per cent of these export-oriented and 20 per cent vendor industry. Besides losing export contracts the industry’s cost of production has increased by 30 per cent as some units opt for self generation of power.

All these factors add to the cost of production and the industry fails to compete in the world market where cost-effectiveness, quality and timely delivery are the only way to succeed.

Site Association of Industry Chairman Imran Shaukat said that three major problems were being faced by the industry, including power and water shortage and poor quality service of telecommunication companies.

Besides, load-shedding by the power utility, he said, on an average there were breakdowns on regular basis, which completely crippled industrial production and caused lots of hardship.

The industry does not only lose production hours but also has to compromise on quality, which is, in a free market, of paramount importance. The power breakdowns and voltage fluctuations cause severe damage to costly plants and machinery and bring production to a grinding halt at times.

The Site industry needs 25 million gallons of water per day but was being supplied with only 5 million gallons. Most of the industry is export-oriented and engaged in textile processing, which needs a lot of water, he added.

Korangi Association of Trade and Industry (Kati) Chairman Masood Naqi said that owing to load-shedding many industrial units stopped booking export contracts from foreign buyers as they could not meet the delivery deadline.

He said many a times the industry had to send export consignments by air in order to meet the deadline but this added to their cost and resulted in huge losses.