Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association President Abdus Salam Murshedy said this while talking to daily sun yesterday.
“Our 50 to 60 percent garment units use generators run by diesel as a back-up support for ensuring uninterrupted electricity supply to their factories,” Murshedy said adding: “Rest 35 to 40 per cent garment units depend on national grid for electricity supply.”
Apparel (RMG) factories, which are depended on national grid for electricity supply, have to suspend their production for 10 to 12 hours daily due to load-shedding.
“As a result, the garments units that use generators have to purchase about 240 million litres of diesel annually to overcome electricity shortage,” he informed.
Industry owners are spending additional Tk 10.97 billion for buying gas and diesel per year for generating 1,200MW of electricity for their factories, the BGMEA president further told.
“If we are provided with uninterrupted supply of gas and electricity, then we will to spend only Tk 4.05 billion for gas and diesel purpose,” Murshedy told daily sun.
He, however, said that they (RMGs) have been incurring Tk 6.92 billion loss annually due to frequent power failure.
“Damages to machinery and other electricity run equipments are causing another Tk 12.71 billion in annual losses as the power fails three to four times a day,” he said, adding: “The annual loss of the sector is Tk 19.63 billion.”
“We have minimized our production cut by using back-up generators but the units which depend on national grid for power are facing a serious setback due to frequent power cut,” he said expressing his dissatisfaction.
He said a total of 3.5 million people are directly involved with the garments industry, while 30 million people are indirectly dependent on it. “If the government fails to ensure uninterrupted electricity supply in the RMG sectors, then a large number of people will face unemployment,” he feared.
“We are compelled to reduce orders due to power and gas crisis, he said, adding that the garments owners are paying additional cargo charge of US$4 dollar per tonne through air cargo compared to ship cargo due to delay in production.
He called upon the government to keep the power tariff within Tk 3.15 per unit for RMG sector unless an uninterrupted electricity supply could be ensured. “Diesel should be provided to the garments manufacturers at a subsidised price,” he said adding that the garments sector entrepreneurs should be given an uninterrupted electricity and gas supply like the units at export processing zones.”
Readymade garments owners have been facing 25 per cent production loss due to frequent power cut, former BGMEA President Anwarul Kabir Chowdhury Parves told daily sun. “Three hours power cut a day causes 25 percent production fall in garment units,” he said.
He informed that nearly 4000 knit and readymade garments factories require 720megawatts (MW) of electricity daily but we receive only 500MW electricity supply, he said, adding: “Due to frequent power cut, garments owners run production through ‘costly’ diesel run generators.”
The RMG sectors didn’t face such problems three to four years ago, the former BGMEA boss also managing director of Evidence group told daily sun.
The diesel-run generators have a capacity to run three to four hours daily but it comes into inoperative when it took extra load for more than eight to nine hours, he said.
Governments in India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and China play major role in providing uninterrupted electricity supply for ensuring 100 per cent productivity.
“We have paid overtime to workers to minimise the production loss,” he, further said.
The former president also said that the RMG belt at Asulia and Tangi has low pressure of gas supply that also disrupts the production. “Due to power and gas crisis, our production is reduced drastically.”
Terming the RMG as a first step of industrialisation, he said that the country will go to second phase (installation of capital industry like shipbuilding) and third and final phase (services sector) through the success in RMG and textiles sector. “For this, the government should ensure electricity for RMG and textiles sectors to make it competitive with India, Sri Lanka and China,” he said.
Bangladesh should follow the example of the neighboring India in order to solve the power and energy crisis by taking initiative in this regard, he said.
The crisis for electricity and energy would be reduced significantly if the government prepares an area based industrial mapping under a master plan, he observed. “The government would easily supervise the wastage of valuable lands and ensure power and energy in these sectors,” he firmly said.
He called upon the government to extract coal immediately as the diesel based power plants are not affordable.
The Daily Sun, Fri, 11/03/2011
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