FAISALABAD, July 19: The local industrialists, trade leaders, politicians and hotel owners have criticized the 10 per cent increase in gas tariff.

All-Pakistan Sizing Industries Association Chairman Mirza Mohammad Shafiq said the cottage industry was expecting some relief in taxes or a cut in gas nad electricity tariffs, but the increase in gas charges had shattered all their dreams.

He said the sizing industry, chemical units, bleaching and dying factories and other textile ancillary units would face serious financial problems if the increase in gas tariff was not withdrawn.

The industrialists apprehended that such a decision would not only affect the policies and plans of the government to meet the challenges of the WTO regime, but also result in price hike and unemployment.

The deputy opposition leader in the Punjab Assembly, Rana Sanaullah, MPAs Shaikh Ijaz Ahmad and Malik Nawaz and City PML-N president Khwaja Mohammad Islam said the 'mini-budgets' in the shape of increase in the prices of gas, electricity and petroleum products had exposed the claims of the government about strengthening the national economy.

All developing and under-developed countries were providing maximum benefits besides a cut in duties to industrialists to meet the challenges of WTO. But our government was evolving anti-trade and anti-people policies just to please their foreign masters, they said.

Faisalabad Hotel-Owners Management Association Chairman Naveed Ahmad also criticized the increase in gas tariff and urged the government to withdraw it immediately.

SUICIDE: A youth allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself with a ceiling fan of his house in Chak 108 GB of Jaranwala on Sunday night. Akmal reportedly had an altercation with his family members over a minor issue.