FCCI condemns increase in electricity tariff

Faisalabad: Hamid Javed, the President Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry expressed grave concern over the recent increase in electricity bills and observed that the present hike in electricity tariff by Nepra would put further unbearable burden on the commercial and domestic consumers and yield negative impact over the Export Oriented Sector.

This will jeopardise the industrial productivity as well as business activities, he added. Talking to newsmen, Hamid Javed said that the increase in the electricity tariff by the Nepra is not understandable in the present scenario whereby the textile sector of Faisalabad is already in recession due to energy crisis, high bank mark up and other concerning issues prevailing since years.

He pointed out that the 62 per cent of textile exports of our motherland are Faisalabad based. He further added that there are minimum line losses in Fesco and surprisingly no compensation had been given to Fesco so far, as compared to other electricity corporation in other regions of Pakistan.

Expressing his dissatisfaction, he said that the economic managers and federal ministers have been assuring the FCCI officials since long to facilitate the textile sector of Faisalabad, but no commitment has, till now, been fulfilled. This shows that the government is not serious to overcome the present crisis being faced by the industrial sector of Faisalabad. It is worth mentioning that due to high input cost, the Faisalabad textile products have been loosing their credibility and share in international market day by day.

The Pakistans competitors like India, China, Bangladesh and other Asian countries are selling their products at cheaper rates due to the subsidies and facilities being provided to them by their respective governments.

Hamid Javed appealed the prime minister of Pakistan Muhammad Yousuf Raza Gilani, the federal textile minister Rana Farooq Saeed Khan and the federal minister for water and power Raja Parvez Ashraf to probe into the matter and direct the Nepra to roll back the decision up to the entire satisfaction of the commercial and domestic consumers of the textile hub of Pakistan.


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