Bhairahawa, April 20:

Most of the industries in Rupandehi district here are in the verge of closure due to daily load-shedding.

Businessmen complain that production cost of goods has gone up because of the use of generator for power supply.

“Production is also being disturbed due to regular load-shedding hours,” they say adding that the price of goods rose due to increase in the production cost.

“The Sales and distribution of goods have also been affected,” complain the industrialists.

“Big industries including over 30 crusher industries have been hit hard because of the load shedding,” says Krishna Prasad Sharma, chairman of Siddharthanagar Chambers of Commerce and Industries.

“Its difficult to operate industries smoo-thly and pay salary during such a hard time when most of the industries are forced to close for eight hours due to load-shedding everyday,” he adds.

Spinning and synthetic industries that should be operated round the clock are more hit by the load-shedding hard, industrialists say, adding that half of the production of the industries has been gone down and production cost has increased due to the load-shedding.

“The irregular power supply even for a small fraction of time will cause a loss equivalent to around Rs 50,000 in my industry,”

Bijay Kharel of Jagadamba Synthetic says.

“The price of goods has increased thrice as we have to operate the factory with the help of generator,”

he says, adding that his factory manufactures plastic sacks and tents.

The irregular power supply will also contribute to the inflation.

They are forced to operate their industries with the help of generators as they cannot keep the factory close for long. “It will hurt the employees and employers both.”

“The materials that used to cost only five rupees is currently cost up to Rs 18,” Kharel says adding that the use of generator costs them much increasing the price of goods unnaturally.

Ten per cent of the goods manufactured in the factory are consumed in the domestic market while 90 per cent is exported, he says, adding that the increasing price of products due to load-shedding is making difficult to compete in the foreign markets.

On one hand the industries are facing shortage of regular supply of petroleum products and on the other load-sheding has hit them hard.