LCCI concerned over severe electricity shortage

Lahore—The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has expressed grave concern over power riots in Faisalabad and feared that the violent protests may engulf other parts of the country, if government fails to take corrective measures immediately.

The LCCI President Irfan Qaiser Sheikh said on Thursday that despite tall claims by the government, the electricity situation is fast turning from bad to worse and forcing the people to take to the streets. He was of the view that frequency of the power outages is enough to prove that no governance like thing exists in the country. Had there been anything like that the situation would have been quite encouraging today, he added.

According to him, the business community was unable to understand that why the government did not present any energy solution in the last four years. The recent surge in unemployment graph and lawlessness is because of the electricity shortage that has caused the closure of a large number of industrial units.

He said the industry needs a continuous supply of electricity to keep the units operational and to complete the export orders well within the given timeframe but only because of the shortage of electricity the exports are not up to the mark. Pakistan had already lost a number of international markets and the new longer hour power cuts would further aggravate the situation, he added.

The LCCI President said that cheaper and uninterrupted power supply is only way to achieve economic targets but neither the government is sharing its future plans to this regard nor paying any heed to the difficulties being faced by the trade and industry.

He also feared a surge in street crimes, saying that law and order situation is bound to aggravate in the coming days as repeated power outages in the industrial estates is jacking up the graph of unemployment particularly hitting the daily wagers hard. He said most of industrial units had already reduced their working to single six-hour shift from the previous three shifts system. This led to increased level of raw-material wastage leaving production process non-profitable, he added. “The crisis in industrial sector is not only causing flight of capital and relocation of industrial units to the countries like Bangladesh and Malaysia but had also reduced government revenue drastically,” he said.

The LCCI President said that the electricity crisis has crippled the industrial and economic activities and made life a nightmare for the people.