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The country’s textile manufacturers on Monday expressed fears of suffering huge financial losses due to failure in maintaining export deadlines as production at more than 50 mills had remained almost suspended for a lack of gas supply.
The Bangladesh Textiles Mills Association on the day urged the government to resolve the gas supply problem at mills located in Madhabkhola, Sripur, Baniarchala, Bhabanipur and Gazipur areas immediately so that the mills are able to pay their workers before Eidul-Fitr.
The BTMA in a letter to the prime minister’s power, energy and mineral resources adviser, Towfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, said that if the situation continued to prevail, the mill owners would fail to deliver export orders on time and the law and order situation in the areas might deteriorate if the workers are not paid their wages.
The letter said that spinning, weaving and fabric-processing mills in the areas had suspended their productions by 75 per cent for the last few weeks as the pressure of gas there had declined to 3 to 5 PSI from 15 PSI.
The letter signed by BTMA president Mohammad Ali Khokon also said that the trade body on April 7 sent a letter to the managing director of Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Ltd requesting it to resolve the gas crisis but the situation was yet to improve and had rather deteriorated.
Khokon said that textiles mills usually ran on gas-based captive power and captive power generation had almost come to a halt at some units for shortage of gas.
BTMA senior vice-president Fazlul Haque said that at least 50 to 60 mills in the areas had been suffering from acute shortage of gas for the last two months.
This has led to an uncertainty regarding payment to the workers before Eid as mill owners are facing a liquidity crisis with their units running at 30 to 25 per cent capacity, he said.
