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SHEIKHUPURA, Jan 4: Over 900 industrial units have been closed down in the district rendering around 250,00 workers prominently daily-wagers jobless because of ongoing electricity and gas loadshedding, claims a labourers’ representative.
Talking to reporters at a local hotel on Friday, Manzoor Malik, who is secretary-general of the industrial workers’ association, said unscheduled loadshedding of gas and electricity had compelled the factory owners to shut their enterprises and retrench staffers.
The loadshedding of gas and electricity was going on unabated for the past one month and the situation rather aggravated further with the passage of time, he said adding that several meetings between factory owners and authorities concerned took place to bring an improvement in the alarming situation, but to no avail.
Replying to a question, Manzoor said that Wapda and Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) authorities always turned a deaf ear to their grievances. He said that industrialists running their business in this district were paying billion of rupees in taxes but they were not being provided legitimate facilities, including gas and electricity utilities, in return.
The situation would worsen further if the government did not take any action promptly, the general-secretary warned.
SIALKOT: The hours-long loadshedding of electricity and gas has affected the production at over 12,000 small and big industrial units in this district, which is causing around Rs500 million loss on daily basis to industrialists, collectively.
The perturbed business community has alleged that this critical situation was causing inordinate delay in dispatch of consignments to foreign destinations on time as they were unable to meet their production targets due to unscheduled loadshedding of both electricity and gas.
The power crisis has also rendered jobless thousands of workers, prominently daily wagers, owing to the closure or near closure of many production units.
The Gujranwala Electric Power Company officials have not yet announced any schedule of power loadshedding and same is the case with SNGPL authorities.
On Friday, the city braved as many as 7-hour long power outage, paralysing all civic and mercantile activities.
Daska, Pasrur and Sambrial and surrounding areas underwent seven-hour plus power outage while this span exceeded 10-hour duration in rural areas.
Local business, social and political circles have expressed grave concern over this situation hampering the whole business and household life.
