Factories owners and manufacturers in Small Industrial Estate Nowshera have threatened to shut down their manufacturing units against the prolonged power outages, which had caused huge financial losses to them. While addressing at a news conference at press club on Wednesday, Small Industrial Estate Association Nowshera President Zahid Iqbal said that the industries are being faced with prolonged electricity loadshedding, due to which most of the units have been closed down, rendering thousands of workers jobless.

Flanked by the manufacturers and factories owners, Fayaz Bacha, Hayatullah, Tahir Khan, Amanullah and others, he said the Nowshera Small Industrial Estate is lacking all kind of facilities, along with poor infrastructure. The association president informed that a total of 100 industrial units, comprising on marble, pharmaceutical, PVC pipes, juices/beverage, and woolen, were being established at Small Industrial Estate Nowshera, wherein more than 10,000 workers employed.

Hayatullah said the provincial government is taking steps to only facilitate the larger manufacturers, but no initiatives were made to resolve the issues of small factories owners in the province, especially from district Nowshera. Zahid Iqbal said that all industrial estates across the country were being exempted from electricity loadshedding under the policy, but it was completely unjust to carryout the prolonged power outages in Nowsehra Industrial Estate. He asked the federal government, Ministry of Water and Power and Wapda to acquire land from provincial government and establish a separate electricity grid station for the Nowsehra Industrial Estate to resolve loadshedding issue.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017