LAHORE, Dec 28: Minister for Water and Power Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar on Friday promised partial restoration of electricity to 190 large-scale textile factories in the Punjab.

These units are closed for the last one week due to complete disconnection of power supply since Monday.

The minister, who was earlier reluctant to make a commitment to the textile industry leaders from Lahore and Faisalabad during a meeting with them at the All-Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) office on Friday, later succumbed to industry leaders pressure and promised to partially restore power supplies after two days in the presence of the media.

He also invited the industry leaders to Islamabad for a meeting to discuss the matter.

A hosiery industry leader from Faisalabad, Zia Alam Dar, warned the minister of protests and take-over of offices of the distribution companies if the minister did not fulfill his promise.

The industry workers are ready to come out on streets as their jobs are at stake, he said.

The shutdown of spinning, weaving and processing factories across Punjab because of total disconnection of power supply has already started disrupting supply of yarn and fabric to the value-added small-to medium-scale apparel industry.

Aptma leader Gohar Ejaz said the industry was disappointed at the minister’s response to the crisis, “but we will wait till Monday to give him time to fulfil his commitment.”

“We have decided to sacrifice our production for another two days and suffer losses but let me tell the minister that Punjab is being discriminated against as there was no shortage of electricity for the industry in other provinces,” he said, declining Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar’s offer of a meeting, “We don’t want meetings. We want electricity,” he said.

Aptma-Punjab chairman Shahzad Ali Khan lamented that the industry in Punjab was closing down because of energy shortages.

He wondered as to why only Punjab’s industry had to share energy shortages at the expense of jobs and exports.

He said that energy shortages for the industry were sending a bad message to the world and buyers have started treating Pakistan as an unreliable source of textile products.

The minister, who had agreed to meet the textile industry leaders on the intervention of some unidentified mediators, told Dawn in reply to a question that the delay in the shipment of fuel had created current massive electricity shortfall.

He said ships carrying 25,000 ton diesel had started reaching Karachi port and the situation would improve over the next several days.

Displeased by the pressure by the industry, the minister said he was being forced to stop visiting Aptma in future.

When he was reminded by textile leaders from Faisalabad that the jobless textile workers would not vote for him in the next elections, he said he belonged to an area (Gujrat) with very little textile industry.

He told the textile millers to avoid politicising the issue and stop issuing “deadlines.”

He said he could not be threatened by deadlines.