LAHORE, March 18: The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association has launched an initiative for conservation of energy. The National Productivity Organisation (NPO), GTZ and National Energy Conservation Centre (Enercon) have joined hands with Aptma in efforts directed at maximising optimal use of energy.

Aptma’s Punjab chairman Akber Sheikh told Dawn on Tuesday that the programme was all the more relevant in the context of present energy crisis and the efforts being directed towards conservation.

A systematic energy audit, encompassing all sectors of the textile industry, had been envisaged to determine the efficient consumption benchmarks for the industry.

He said that the spinning and processing industries were being audited in the first phase. The energy audit of the weaving industry and composite industrial units would be undertaken in the next phase.

The results of earlier energy audits undertaken by Asian Productivity Organisation (APO) and NPO consultants had been encouraging. They had identified 10 to 15 per cent energy saving in sample mills.

He said that as a part of wider strategy the Aptma Punjab was helping the public sector entities in enhancement of expertise and capacity-building to enable them undertake the energy audit of industrial units independently.

The best practices officers of NPO and Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda) and specialists from Textile University, Faisalabad, the University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Lahore and UET Taxila were provided orientation and know-how to create a national pool of energy auditors.

He said that the NPO in association with Aptma was also preparing a programme for providing concessionary finance to the industry for helping it to implement measures suggested by the audit, such as changing equipment, machines and upgrade other production facilities.

The initiative is a part of a long-term strategy to conserve energy and secure sustainable development.