KARACHI -


The Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (Unisame) has urged the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR) to commercially exploit technology for gasification for power generation for the benefit of SMEs.
In a statement President Unisame Zulfikar Thaver said the principal engineer PCSIR Razia Begum confirmed that PCSIR has the technology and is in a position to offer the technology to SMEs or the big industrialist who desire to set up coal gasification or biogas units for power generation in their premises.
Thaver said that the finance minister (FM) Ishaq Dar in his budget speech to the national assembly announced deregulation and exemption policy for power generation under alternate renewable energy system and made it possible for SME units to have their own gasification units to meet their requirements of energy.
The union has scheduled a meeting with PCSIR scientists in the first week of July 2013 and has urged the ministry of science and technology to support the promotion of gasification for power generation from coal, rice husk and other suitable substances meeting the cost factor requirements.
The union pointed out that imported coal is available from Indonesia at an economical price and can be used till such time we tap our own coal resources fully. Secondly gasification units can also be imported from India and China but since PCSIR has the technology it is in our own interest to fabricate gasification plants locally with the help of PCSIR and Engineering Development Board (EDB) to save valuable foreign exchange.