FAISALABAD, June 10: Powerloom factory owners and workers on Monday staged a sit-in outside the Fesco headquarters against hours-long electricity loadshedding.

The protesters gathered in front of the Fesco offices where they set up a camp which was joined by workers and factory owners belonging to different areas. They kept besieging the Fesco offices for more than five hours and demanded smooth electricity supply.

Addressing the gathering, a factory owner, Mirza Shafiq, said they had been bearing the brunt of ill-conceived policies of the outgoing government and finding it difficult to run their businesses. He said the power outages had rendered a large number of workers jobless. He urged the government to exempt powerloom sector from outages.

Meanwhile, Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) President Zahid Aslam said two weekly holidays by the Punjab government was a good decision that would help save the energy but the number of extra holidays throughout the year need to be minimised as businesses were losing substantial working days on account of severe energy crisis in the country.

He said currently gas curtailment to Faisalabad industries was four days a week and any increase in electricity loadshedding would affect capacity production and employment situation in the area.