LAHORE: All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) Punjab Chairman Adil Bashir has urged the Federal Minister for Power Omar Ayub Khan to intervene and issue directions to the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) and the Chief Executives of distribution companies (DISCOs) for uninterrupted power supply on independent feeders of the exporting industry. He said the exporting industry was obliged to Prime Minister Imran Khan and his team for fulfilling the promise of providing regionally competitive energy, i.e., gas at $6.5/MMBTU and electricity at Rs7.50 cents/kWh, and is bullish to achieve the targets of $28 billion textile and clothing exports, 6 million direct jobs and $1.4 billion per annum new investment by 2023-24. However, he pointed out with grave concern that the utility agencies are not catching up the exporting industry’s pace, as the supply of electricity has been suspended to the production units soon after their shifting to independent feeders, marked with zero line losses and no theft. Unfortunately, the exporting industry has once again been dragged to the problem of energy availability while the prime minister has resolved the issue of energy affordability, he lamented. According to him, the Punjab-based textile mills have been exposed to a severe load shedding of electricity over the last 48 hours, resulting into the termination of production activities. He apprehended that the exporting industry would not be able to boost exports in case the utility agencies failed to cooperate with its efforts of doubling exports and bring down the trade gap. Already, he added, a good number of mills have been succumbed to non-availability of power supply and chances of their revival is next to impossible. He has urged the Federal Minister for Power to respond to an emergency like situation and issue directions to NTDC for smooth supply of electricity to the exporting industry without any further delay. Published in Daily Times, January 4th 2019.