PESHAWAR, Jan 12: Suspension of gas supply to spinning units situated in the Gadoonamanzai Industrial Estate (GIE) has caused substantial financial losses to manufacturers after some of them have lost export contracts, according to business circles.
"We will have to pay $19,000 in penalty if we could not honour our contract to export yarn worth $222,000 to a South Korean buyer," a representative of GIE based spinning unit told Dawn on Wednesday.
Business circles said that except for one of the four spinning units situated in the industrial estate, which has installed its own diesel-based power generation unit, the rest experienced closure of manufacturing plants because of non-supply of gas.
Apart from the NWFP based textile units who are finding difficult to fulfil their export orders, scores of match manufacturing units, according to business sources, are also likely to miss their export orders after experiencing closure of their manufacturing plants.
The Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL), said business circles, cut off supply of gas to GIE-based textile units more than two weeks ago without intimation to the management of the units which have installed captive power units to convert gas into power to carry out their manufacturing operations.
Whereas, supply of gas to the rest of the gas-based industrial units across the Frontier province was also suspended couple of days back making the manufacturing sector of NWFP to experience substantial losses.
Addressing a press conference at the Press Club here on Wednesday, Hayatabad Industrial Estate President Nauman Wazir accused the concerned authorities of resorting to discrimination against the manufacturing sector of the province.
He said that the move had rendered more than 10,000 daily wage workers jobless in different parts of the province and caused huge financial losses to the manufacturers.
Similarly, according to business circles, some 12,000 to 15,000 workers of the GIE-based spinning units are likely to suffer because of the suspension of manufacturing activities.
General manager of a spinning unit said that the closure of manufacturing units might also force the skilled workers to leave GIE in search of employment in Punjab or Karachi. "If this happens, it would create a big problem for us in view of the shortage of skilled labour in the NWFP," said the general manager.
Flanked by a large number of industrialists representing various sectors affected by the discontinuation of gas, Mr Wazir warned the federal government that the manufacturing sector of the province would resort to hold demonstrations in Islamabad and Peshawar if the situation was not rectified in three or four days.
Later, talking to Dawn Mr Wazir termed the suspension of gas to the NWFP industries as discriminatory. "While gas supply to the NWFP based manufacturing units has been stopped on the pretext of increase in consumption of gas by domestic consumers," said Mr Wazir "the same action has not been taken in Punjab and Islamabad region where gas-based manufacturing units are carrying out production activities at full swing".
Peshawar-based officials of the SNGPL told Dawn that the company was forced to disconnect supply of gas to industrial units because of rise in domestic consumption.
"We have not committed any crime by disrupting gas supply to industrial units because under the contract we are supposed to provide gas to industrial units -- established from 1992 onward - for nine months every year," said an official of the company.
However, his remarks attracted reaction from the industrialists who, when contacted, said that the same rule also applied on the industrial units set up in Punjab.
"Gas supply to manufacturing units in Punjab has never been halted through out the year, hence, applying this rule only to the NWFP-based units is nothing less than discrimination," said Mr Wazir.