An immediate closure of 30 percent of the basic textile industry in the country is a sudden outcome of the government's pick of the compressed natural gas (CNG) stations against the basic textile industry for continuous supply of gas during the ongoing gas load shedding period.
Another 50 percent closure of basic textile was on the cards during the days to come, said the disgruntled spinners and weavers, who had made heavy investments few years back on Sui gas-led power plants to ensure smooth functioning of their production units during electricity load shedding.
It may be noted that hopes were high earlier that the government would approve the Ministry of Textile's proposal for continuing gas supply to basic textile while suspending it to the CNG stations during gas load shedding period.
But the government, solely running on political considerations, turned down this proposal and the participants of a meeting in Islamabad with Financial Advisor to the Prime Minister in the chair decided to keep gas supply on to the CNG stations while cutting it off to the basic textile industry.
It is also worth noting that the basic textile, being run on electricity is already passing through the most critical phase of their existence because of the ongoing heavy power shortage in the country. According to some official estimates in Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda), consumption of B-3 consumers has fallen down to 250 MW in November 2008 against 1,000 MW in November 2007, which means heavy closures of electricity-run basic textile units.
It is interesting to note that both the CNG stations and the basic textile industry are consuming equal amount of Sui gas annually, falling around 200 mmcfd per annum. Not only this, both the sectors have also invested almost similar amount of over Rs 60 billion during last six years. However, the number of jobs created by the Sui gas stations is much lesser than what the textile industry is contributing to the national economy.
According to one Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) report, the CNG stations have provided about 100,000 direct and indirect jobs against 400,000 direct jobs in the textile industry. The number of CNG stations as of June 2008 was 2,214 with another 615 in the pipeline, as the relevant authority has already issued licenses to them and their installation is, at present, under way.