President of SITE Association of Industry Abdul Rasheed, in a press statement, has opposed providing gas share of Sindh province to Punjab and said that Sindh province has the first right of use over the gas produced in the province. As such, all industries of Sindh including Karachi industries should be provided gas without interruption.
Expressing concern over the information of providing 100 MMCFD gas produced from Ghotki to SNGPL instead of SSGCL, Abdul Rasheed said that it is in violation of Article-158 of the Constitution of Pakistan.
Abdul Rasheed has demanded the federal government to allocate gas produced from Ghotki only to SSGCL so as to meet the demand of industrial & residential consumers of Sindh.
“It is no wisdom to stop gas to Karachi industries and provide the same to Punjab” he remarked and added that it looks like atmosphere is being created to close down Karachi industries. Terming violation of Article 158 as an attempt to deprive Karachi industries of their constitutional rights, Abdul Rasheed said that due to non-supply of gas, industrial activities have been badly affected, resulting in delayed completion of export orders and failure to ship export orders on time.
SITE President further said that Karachi industries has been facing gas shortage since last 4 months. The Karachi industries were treated with utter injustice this winter as they were neither provided natural gas nor RLNG at costlier Govt rates. He informed the media that as a result of gas crisis, the export share of Karachi industries has declined by 4pc, which now stands at 50pc instead of 54pc., which will ultimately have negative impact on exports and national economy as a whole.
Abdul Rasheed demanded the Federal government to ensure to provide gas to Karachi industries as per their requirement to save them from disaster by taking long-term steps aimed at reducing cost of production and removing obstacles in industrial activities. Otherwise the wheels of industries will stop which may result in mass unemployment together with creation of law & order issues.
