SIALKOT, Jan 1: Hundreds of industrial workers who have lost jobs due to closures of industries stemming from hours-long loadshedding staged protest demonstrations in Sialkot, Daska and Sambrial on Thursday. They burnt tyres and blocked traffic on roads for about two hours.

Also, hundreds of exporters, industrialists and traders took out a rally in Sialkot in protest against, what they said, unscheduled loadshedding throughout the district. They demanded an announcement of schedule for power cut downs from the power supply company, that is Gujranwala Electric Power Company. .Also, representatives of Sialkot’s trade bodies told reporters that exporters and traders had announced not to pay their electricity bills in protest against unscheduled loadshedding.

Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industries (SCCI) President Hasan Ali Bhatti held Gepco responsible for the closure of more than 350 small industrial units in the district. SCCI official Mian Muhammad Anwar said that there had been no letup in outages in Sialkot despite rising protests by businessmen and workers.

He claimed the Sialkot industries had suffered Rs5.6 billion loss in the last two weeks due to everyday 18 to 20 hours of loadshedding.

At a meeting of the executive committee of the Surgical Instruments Manufacturers Association (SIMA) held here, surgical instruments manufactures and exporters expressed grave concern over this nasty fact that due to the present load shedding of 18 to 20 hours in Sialkot, the surgical industry has suffered miserably and has reached at the verge of complete collapse.

The meeting was told that surgical exporters in Sialkot were facing extreme difficulties in executing export orders and the manufacturing and production process had come to a halt.

The sports industry has also expressed grave concern over ongoing unscheduled loadshedding and urged the government to take note of the critical situation in the larger interest of the industry.

The business situation here in Pakistan, which had already been very tense due to economic crisis around the world, had further deteriorated due to “wrong” policies of the Water and Power Development Authority.