LARKANA: The Sindh Balochistan Rice Millers and Traders Association (SBRMTA) on Wednesday threatened to shut 800 rice mills if the Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco) carried on with its 20-hour long loadshedding daily which had thrown a wrench into the works and almost stopped mills’ wheels.

Qamaruddin Shaikh, central president of the SBRMTA, told Dawn after chairing a meeting of the association here that the meeting had decided that if the issue of loadshedidng remained unheard and unsolved the millers would be forced to stop paying power bills.

He said the millers having Sepco connections faced more loadshedding than those having connections of HESCO and in Balochistan, which had inflicted colossal losses on the millers.

In Shahdadkot alone 80 rice mills were regularly paying Rs30 million in power bills to Sepco but they were being supplied power for only 12 hours, he said.

He said that huge paddy stocks lying in the open in the mills would be damaged if they failed to process them before monsoon rains.

The Sepco had deliberately linked power feeders of rice mills with village feeders to pass on line losses to the mills, he claimed.