ISLAMABAD: Business leaders, Thursday, burst over the ban on supply of explosives to miners resulting in unemployment of over 1 million labourers. Explosives are used for Fragmentation Blasts and Quarry Blasts.
Usually four types of explosives are used in surface mining: slurries, dry mixes, emulsions and the hybrid heavy ANFO a generic explosive. Blasting in underground mines, controlled blasting, secondary blasting, non-explosives rock breaking are used in mining.
Selection of explosives depends on many factors, which primarily includes critical diameter, hydrostatic pressure, temperature, minimum primer weight, density weight strength, bulk strength, gap sensitivity, water resistance, loading procedures, coupling or decoupled properties, shelf life, reliability for bulk operations and overall drilling and blasting economics.
Speaking the video conference held here in connection with news conference of Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FPCCI), local business leaders hailing from the federal capital, strongly criticized the concerned ministry for banning the sale of explosives to miners.
Raja Naveed Akhtar told this scribe here said that blasting was an essential part of the mining cycle. In virtually all forms of mining, rock is broken by drilling and blasting the rock. Blasting technology is the process of fracturing material by the use of a calculated amount of explosive so that a predetermined volume of material is broken.
Blasting with black powder, there have been steady developments in explosives, detonating and delaying techniques and in the understanding of the mechanics of rock breakage by explosives. Good blast design and execution are essential to successful mining operations.
Improper or poor practices in blasting can have a severely negative impact on the economics of a mine. The use of excessive explosives at a mine site can result in damages to the rock structures and cause unwanted caving and large increases in support costs.
He observed that due to non renewal of license for the provision of five kilogram explosives to miners, more than one million miners and laborers had become jobless because of closed work in the mines. This is causing loss of billions of rupees to the national exchequer in the term of non export of domestically produced mining products as well as expenditures of foreign exchange on import of said products.
Moreover, blockage of work in mining units in Chakwal, Attock, Pindi Ghaib, Haripur and other adjacent areas is also threatening of occurrence of humanitarian crisis because families of over one million laborers are without means of livelihood. He urged the FPCCI to take up this issue with the concerned government departments to save the miners and laborers from economic genocide.
Earlier, main business leaders, at video conference FPCCI to further enhance role to facilitate Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to promote the products.
They also questioned about FPCCI’s role in highlighting problems and difficulties confronted by the Small and Medium Entrepreneurs (SMEs) with the relevant government departments in last 20 years and asked the federation of chambers to pursue government departments vigorously for the resolution of these problems.
FPCCI Chairman Coordination Malik Sohail Hussain along with other key important leaders of business community were present in the event. Participants raised questions about FPCCI’s role in highlighting problems and difficulties confronted by the Small and Medium Entrepreneurs (SMEs).
They were also vocal about future strategy of FPCCI to link SMEs sector with the other countries because the key speaker had briefed the media in Karachi Head Office about future prospects of cooperation between Pakistani SME sectors with Chinese companies.
The participants also proposed that PFCCCI should take up the higher rates of power and tax tariffs with concerned government departments and ministries to encourage the small entrepreneurs and cottage industry. The participants were of the view the higher tariff rates were marginalizing profit as well as reduced competition with products of other countries.
While highlighting the problems confronted by the cottage industry and SME sector in the jurisdiction of federal capital the business leaders observed that small business men and manufacturers were paying high price on the hands of the tax authorities and power sector officers and FPCCI should undertake efforts to resolve these problems
