Strongly opposing the move of Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) to suspend gas supply to all textile mills in Punjab and NWFP for an indefinite period, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry has called upon the government to urgently restore gas to textile industry as the decision will hit the productivity of about 75 percent of the textile mills in the country.

Karim Aziz Malik & Ahsan Zafar Bakhtawari Vice Presidents of Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) in a statement said that textile industry is the backbone of Pakistan’s exports contributing more than 55 percent share to exports and suspending gas to it will prove disastrous for textile sector and the economy at large.

They said Pakistan desperately needs to attract more investment and enhance exports for turning around its sagging economy. However decisions like suspending gas to industry for an indefinite period will discourage future investment and foil all efforts to improve exports.

Karim Aziz Malik said this drastic step by SNGPL also negates the decision of the Cabinet Committee on Gas Load Management which had approved gas suspension to industry and CNG stations only for two days in a week.

He said that industry was already suffering badly from 10 to 12 hours of electricity load-shedding in a day while gas suspension will severely jeopardize its survival as many industrial units have no energy backup to run their operations.

He said that industry provides around 60 percent of total revenue to the national exchequer and a similar percentage in jobs. But the slowdown in industrial sector, caused by the power & gas shutdowns will not only lead to closure of more industrial units, it will also make sizeable erosion in government revenue, apart from causing massive layoffs, he added.

ICCI Vice President urged the gas companies to evolve a suitable mechanism to minimize wastage of gas. He said that around 33 percent of gas is reportedly wasted due to use of substandard gas appliances. He was of the view that if the waste is controlled through encouraging use of standard gas appliances, the quantum of gas thus saved can be utilized to offset the effects of gas crunch.

He called upon the government to take optimum measures for narrowing the gas supply-demand gap during the three peak winter months, invite investors in this sector with better incentives and go for a practicable strategy that should entail minimum damage to the national economy.