MIANWALI: After nearly one year of closure the Agritech Private Limited, Iskandarabad, has restarted its production.
The fertiliser factory was closed more than a year back due to stoppage of Sui gas supply by the PML-N government.
The factory falls in the constituency of Prime Minister Imran Khan (NA-95) and during his election campaign in Isakhel, he was apprised of the apathy of the hapless workers. Imran had promised to accept the demand of the workers, mainly reopening of the factory, in case his party won the election. Now he has fulfilled his promise, restored the gas supply to the factory and made it functional again.
The Agritech Limited (formerly Pak-American Fertilisers Ltd) is one of the biggest fertiliser producing units in the country with its daily production capacity of 1,050 tonne urea and 650 tonne ammonia.
A large number of notables, workers and other people of area attended a very simple ceremony as factory became functional with the Sui gas supply on Thursday.
Talking to Dawn, the factory’s manager admin, Haji Akram Zahid Khan, said all the facilities provided by the factory to the workers in the past like supply of electricity to the residential colony, drinking water and running of educational institutions besides daily transportation of students from Iskandarabad to Mianwali college had been restored as soon the factory became functional. Earlier, the management had withdrawn these facilities as there was paucity of funds due to closure of the factory.
As the factory was closed, thousands of workers and their families became jobless. They held a sit-in for six months in front the factory besides on the Mianwali-Bannu Road and organised protest rallies from Iskandarabad to Mianwali. Many local politicians, including MPAs and MNA, visited the workers’ protest camp of workers but none of them succeeded in getting the gas supply to the factory restored. During his visit to Kalabagh, former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abassi had also announced restoring the gas supply to factory within a month but his promise was never fulfilled.
Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2018
