Mr. Sultan Ahmed Chawla, President FPCCI has strongly opposed the anticipated plan of Government to announce Saturday as a weekly holiday which will severely hamper the working schedules, reduce production capacity of the industry and export earnings rather than saving energy.

He said that the widening demand of supply gap is primarily due to stagnant supply of energy as there has been no sizable investment in the energy sector since long. To generate and ensure uninterrupted supply of electricity, it is important to increase power generation and to curtail Transmission & Distribution losses instead of announcing two days holiday, which would severely affect industrial and commercial activities of the country.

Mr. Chawla said that Industries would suffer serious production losses due to this non-serious attitude and action of the government. We need to evolve a comprehensive plan to improve both energy availability and energy use, based on country's immense potential which, apart from oil and natural gas, includes hydropower, coal and renewable energy.

He said that the problem is not the shortage of electricity but effective management. It could be managed through proper allocation of energy sector wise in all cities of the country. Owing to the present economic situation of the country, we need to work enthusiastically for all 7 days of the week instead of anticipated 5 days, he added.

President FPCCI further maintained that the present economic condition demands our attention towards increasing our interaction with our major trading partners around the globe and by announcing Saturday a weekly holiday, which will deprive our exporters to maintain laison with them.

He pointed out here that our norm is to consider Friday as a half day, which infact would result in 2 1/2 days holiday. Furthermore 32% of our labour force is engaged in daily wages. What would happen to these poor workers due to 2 weekly holidays. Moreover saving of energy on Saturday could not be utilized next day rather it would be more appropriate to reduce working hours in a week.

He emphasized that the Government should maintain Sunday as weekly holiday instead of two weekly holidays inorder to enhance the trade and economic activities of the country.

He asserted to follow this great quote of father of the nation Late Mohammad Ali Jinnah that work, work, and work.