Faisalabad workers, industrialists resent gas holidays

FAISALABAD: The workers as well as the industrialists in the city here strongly resented forced holidays due to week-long suspension of gas supply since December 8, Geo News reported.

The workers said that they have been thrown out of employment, as the industry cannot run without gas supply, which remains suspended for the last seven days. They have exhausted whatever savings they had and now they and their families are left to face starvation.

Industrialists in the other hand complained that they are finding it difficult to meet their export orders as a result of the last one-week forced holidays due to gas supply cut off and incurring huge losses, while the country also losing much needed foreign exchange.

The industrialists further said that industries were already running on 30% of their installed capacity due to six hours load-shedding of electricity and this suspension of gas supply for the last one-week has rendered the industrial wheel to a complete halt.

They further said that the textile sector is the worst hit as it would not be able to fulfill the export orders for Christmas and the New Year on the one hand while availing the EU Autonomous Trade Preference Scheme (AUTPS) 25% quota granted to Pakistan ending Dec 2012 and also affecting the exports under the Scheme in the beginning of 2013.

The workers have appealed to the government for an early restoration of gas supply to the industries here and save them from virtual starvation.