KARACHI: Representatives of all seven industrial estates in the city on Tuesday gave a 48-hour ultimatum to the federal and provincial governments to resolve the issue of acute water shortages and prolonged power outages, failing which all industrial units in the city and Hub Industrial estate (Balochistan) will shut down.

The seven industrial estates — located in SITE, Federal B Area, Korangi, Super Highway, North Karachi, Landhi and Bin Qasim — house over 15,000 units contributing up to 50 per cent in exports and 50pc in direct taxes. The leaders said large-scale shutdown of industrial activity will result in massive unemployment, loss of production and exports.

At a hurriedly called press conference held at PHMA House, industry leaders including SITE Association of Industry president Muhammad Jawed Bilwani, FB Area Association of Trade and Industry president Muhammad Babar Khan, Korangi Association of Trade and Industry president Tariq Malik, SITE Super Highway Association of Industry president Dr Kaiser Shaikh, North Karachi Association of Trade and Industry Shahid Sabir, Landhi Association of Trade and Industry Islamuddin president Zafar and Bin Qasim Association of Trade and Industry vice-president Rana Naveed Shakoor, the leaders urged for urgent resolution of the issues.

However, the representatives stayed away from blaming K-Electric and Sui Southern Gas Company, maintaining that were not interested in blaming anyone utility.

Our interest is to get power and water without any interruption for smooth production activity, the leaders stressed.

For the last 20 days, industry has been running on 50pc production capacity due to acute water shortages and 8 to 10 hours of loadshedding. This has delayed export commitments, resulting in defaults or airlifting of consignments, putting more financial burden on industry and exporters.

The industry leaders claimed that Karachi industry was contributing up to 54pc in federal government’s revenue collection and around 90pc for Sindh provincial government and yet no seriousness is being shown by both the governments.

They further said that up till now the industry had been footing the salary bill of the entire workforce. However, now we are left with no choice but to take extreme measure of giving ultimatum to both federal and provincial governments of shutting down the industry after 48 hours starting today, leaders said.

Giving some revenue collection figures these leaders said that collection of direct taxes from Karachi comes to around Rs479 billion per annum and shares around 50pc in exports at $10.2bn out of total exports of $20.4bn.

The leaders urged President Manoon Hussain, Prime Minister Khaqan Abbasi, Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Saqib Nisar and Army Chief Qamar Bajwa to intervene and help resolve the issues which were crippling industry and economy of the country.

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2018