LAHORE, Jan 18: Some 187 textile mills, mostly spinning and weaving, in the Lahore region have lost 617 production days because of the periodic suspension of gas for self-power-generation since the first week of December, industry sources said on Thursday.

They said an average spinning mill suffered a production loss of Rs2.25 million and a weaving mill of 120 looms Rs3.5 million per day because of suspension of gas supply.

The mills had to shift to alternative fuels, like furnace oil and diesel, for self-generation to continue production, which increased their costs by about 200 per cent per unit making their products uncompetitive in the world market, they added.

The sources said the stoppage of gas supply for self-generation not only disturbed their production processes but prevented them to make export shipments in time.

They pointed out that not every mill had systems to shift to alternate fuels for power generation and had to stop their production completely as they could not depend on Wapda, which itself is faced with huge power deficit in demand and supply.

The sources resented the government for failing to supply gas to the export-oriented industry, saying it reflected the low priority given to exports by Islamabad.

“On the one hand our exports are falling drastically and we are faced with a stiff competition from our regional competitors and on the other hand, we are facing severe energy crisis resulting in the loss of production,” they added.

They said the textile industry in the Lahore region required about 560mmcfd of gas for self-generation and to continue their production processes.

“Despite the importance of textile industry as the single largest foreign exchange earner, our needs get least priority,” they said.

They demanded that gas should be restored immediately to all export-oriented units so that their additional cost of production could be curtailed.