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Load-shedding reduces investment by 60pc - Naveed Yaseen - 06-02-2009 07:37 AM
By Imtiaz Hussain
Ten to twelve hours long load-shedding in upper Sindh has affected daily business and investment has reduced by 60 per cent.
Load-shedding in Upper Sindh has compelled local investors to stop investment as they are incurring losses worth millions of rupees.Load-shedding has also affected agricultural growth and there is a possibility of scarcity of sugar.
People of upper Sindh are already facing poverty and now they are being deprived of business activities, as even after the passage of one year, people’s confidence in the present government has not been restored.
Local businessmen have invested million of rupees in the agricultural sector, flourmills, ice factories and ginning factories. Chaudhry Sajid Hussain, Chairman Anjuman-e-Tajiran Khairpur, said that the traders of Khairpur are not taking any more risks of investing in the market as the government has failed to provide them power. He said that there is a possibility that traders may face bankruptcy, as they had got loans from different banks for establishing their business.
The power outage has created tension and stress among the business community, because of not getting the required results from their invested money. Agriculturalist Nazir Ahmed Langhah says they use tube wells for irrigating but 15 to 16 hours long load shedding in rural areas of the upper Sindh has affected the agricultural output.
He informed that there is a possibility of shortage of the sugar as sugar cane crop needs plenty of water but there is no water for irrigating which affects the growth of the crop. He said that there is already a shortage of wheat and the people of upper Sindh depend on agriculture for their livelihood, but this is near collapse due to load shedding.
He said that framers had installed tube wells as a substitute for the shortage of irrigation water, but the government instead of giving subsidy enhanced the power rates, which is shocking for growers.
Ahmed Hussain Ujjan sharing his views says that people are deprived of cold water as many ice factories have closed down due to losses caused by unabated power outages. He said that load shedding in the past was not an issue but now it is a critical and chronic issue, which is responsible for the destruction of agricultural growth here in upper Sindh.
Dr. Aftab Lashari renowned child specialist said that outage of power put children as well as adults under stress. He said that load shedding is affecting people as businessmen and traders have complaints of the tension, and stress.
Zahid Hussain said that there are hundreds of small flourmills in upper Sindh but due to load shedding there is a shortage of flour.
He appealed to the government to take notice of the public, industrial and businessmen community and restored their confidence so that the business activities can be started in upper Sindh.
He said that the people of Upper Sindh are unable to purchase generators as prices of these appliances have increased two folds due to load shedding.
imtiaz_phulpoto@yahoo.com
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=180745