Business community during a meeting at Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) strongly criticized the NEPRA’s decision to jack up power tariffs by Rs.1.02 per unit in the garb of fuel cost adjustment and called upon the government to urgently withdraw this hike as it will make the survival of industry unviable and put more burden on the poor people.

They said power tariffs in Pakistan are already one of the highest in the region due to which Pakistani products are losing competitiveness in export markets. Therefore, in this situation, there was no justification for further increasing power tariffs.

Chairing the meeting, Zahid Maqbool, President ICCI said that government seems to be totally insensitive to the problems of businessmen as it is taking decisions which are making conditions hard for growth of business activities and pushing the industry to the verge of total collapse.

He said instead of frequently increasing energy tariffs, government should develop strategies to control transmission, distribution and theft losses due to which the country is losing more than 30 percent of electricity.

Zahid Maqbool said government has made claims number of times to meet power and gas shortage in the country. But so far no visible progress is in sight to overcome rising energy crisis due to which business community is worried about its future.

He said it was the need of the hour that government should focus on exploiting cheap and alternative energy resources for providing uninterrupted power supply to industry at affordable cost so that industrialists could improve productivity and promote exports.

Businessmen urged the government to take immediate steps for tackling energy crisis, reducing high production cost and improving business environment, otherwise private sector will not be able to promote business and industry for ensuring sustainable development of the economy