Textile industry owners and textile engineers on Sunday demanded fund allocation in national budget for 2012-13 for the project of setting up coal-based power plants to ensure
uninterrupted power and gas supply for textile
industries.
At a press briefing, they said if government could ensure uninterrupted power and gas supply for textile industry, they would produce three times more than their present output.
Speakers said that interrupted power and gas
supply hampered 60 percent production of this
industry.
The Institution of Textile Engineers and Technologists Association organised the press briefing at the National Press Club in
the city.
The association president Masudur Rahman presented a keynote paper at the briefing titled ‘Present Status of Textile Industry and its Future’.
Some 50 lakh people are involved in the textile sector and of the country’s total export earnings, the textile industries earn 78 per cent, he pointed out.
He said power crisis not only increased cost of production but also delayed shipments, forcing the
exporters to use costly
airfreight.
Foreign buyers, he pointed out, were switching to countries like Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia because Bangladesh was losing competitiveness.
He demanded fund allocation in the national budget for 2012-13 for setting up coal-based power plants to ensure uninterrupted power supply for textile industries.
The association senior assistant president Daulatuzzaman Ansari said that the government should fix 9 per cent interest on capital investment and on running capital for this industry.
He also called for modernizing Mongla Port as an alternative route for export shipment and improving the existing road transport system.
Institution of Textile Engineers and Technologists Association secretary general Enayet Hossain, assistant president Jayanta Kumar Bhoumik and former secretary general Fakhrul Hasan Murad also spoke at the briefing.
They urged the government to provide power and gas connection to some 200 textile industries which did not get power and
gas connection to run their factories.
They also called for setting up a Textile Park for relocation of textile industries.