KARACHI: Industrialists of Sindh Industrial and Trade Estate (SITE) Association on Monday staged a protest demonstration in front of Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGCL) Head Office against the severe shortage of gas.
The protest was led by the Chairman SITE Muhammad Jawed Bilwani while a large number of industrialists and workers of SITE Industrial area participated in the protest.
The protesters held black flags and placards inscribed for resuming proper and adequate gas supply without any interruption.
It is pertinent to mention here that the pressure of gas provided to the industries has been considerably low from the past several days that halted work at the industries.
Addressing on the occasion, Chairman SITE Jawed Bilwani said that the gas supply was cut short for 13 days in the month of January, adding that the industrial units were facing low gas pressure since October- 2014.
“Despite the fact that the Sindh province produces 72per cent of natural gas, the SITE Industrial units are starving for proper gas pressure which is a great dilemma and a matter of concern, as the SITE industrial area, is one of the largest foreign exchange earners in metropolitan city”, Bilwani added.
He further said that the SITE industrial area is the oldest and largest industrial area of Pakistan where the first gas pipeline was laid just for the SITE industries.
He said that without proper and adequate supply of gas to SITE industries, the manufacturing units will not be able to run their production and suffer imminent closure leading to mass unemployment of over 500,000 workers who are breadwinners for over 2.5 million people.
Later, Chairman SITE Muhammad Jawed Bilwani along with his delegation held a meeting with the MD SSGCL, Khalid Rahman.
During the meeting, the Managing Director (MD) SSGCL assured his firm commitments towards resolving the issues pertaining to the proper and adequate supply of gas without any interruption.
Further the MD SSGCL committed that the gas connections to the CNG stations would be separated from the gas pipelines to the industrial units in SITE industrial areas.
On these firm assurances of MD SSGCL, the Chairman SITE Muhammad Jawed Bilwani ended the protest with the hope that the problems faced by the SITE industrial units would be resolved forthwith by SSGCL.
Bilwani further informed the media that the next meeting with the MD SSGCL would be held on 21 February, 2015 on the same issue.
