ISLAMABAD, May 23: The provinces have warned that there may be massive cuts in daily-wage employment in several industries if the government tries to reduce the duration or change the hours of electricity supply to industrial zones under its new 90-day energy conservation plan to be implemented from next month.

At a meeting held here on Friday between the water and power ministry and the provinces over the implementation of the ‘National Conservation Strategy’, the provincial labour secretaries expressed the fear that textile, cement, pharmaceutical and several other sectors might lay off thousands of daily-wage workers if the manufacturing hours of the industries were disturbed, sources told Dawn.

The government plans to make the industries observe a weekly day off and agree to some loadshedding.

The sources said the provincial labour secretaries told Water and Power Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf that factories might ask their daily-wage workers not to come for duty if there was no electricity at the time of their shifts. Some industries were doing round-the-clock manufacturing and labourers worked in three shifts. If there was no electricity during any of the shifts, the workers of that shift might be laid off.

They said such a situation would have severe repercussions for workers and their families at a time of high food inflation and could result in strikes by labour unions.

The meeting was told that only about 15 per cent electricity requirement of round-the-clock manufacturing industries was met by the government and 85 per cent by their own plants.

The sources said the minister told the provinces to try to convince the industries’ managements to support the government’s plan to conserve energy and if it did not work then efforts should be made not to disturb their manufacturing capacity.An official announcement said Mr Ashraf was of the view that energy conservation with the cooperation of consumers was the most effective tool to cope with power shortage. He said people should consider it their national duty to conserve energy.

He said the government was working to instal new power plants on a war footing but it could take some time. He directed the provinces to submit quarterly reports on the energy conservation status.

The minister said that there would be no loadshedding from Aug 14 next year.

He urged the Pakistan Electric Power Company, Enercon and the provinces to launch a media drive to create awareness about power conservation. He said that if the energy conservation plan was followed the country could save 1,000 megawatts of power this year. Under the plan, industrial zones will observe scattered off days on a rotation basis.