In a passionate claim to haul the country out of its seemingly endless energy crisis, Chief Minister of Punjab Shahbaz Sharif stated that he was willing to sell his very own belongings including a coat as an expression of sincerity and commitment. He further claimed that while the visits to our ‘time-tested’ friend China were not as successful as expected, the neighboring country will assist Pakistan in power generation projects based on coal. Apparently the provincial government, as decreed by the federal capital, is doing whatever it can to address the pilferage of electricity and gas. Herein, the emphasis is on ‘apparently’ since the dilemma of resource hogging continues seamlessly in all provinces at the very expense of ordinary citizens who find it increasingly challenging to find electric power and gas to run their houses.
It was only last year when experts declared that Pakistan was suffering one of the worst energy crises in its history. Not only did it prove to be a source of unrest and (justified) anger among the public but it also contributed to economic inactivity and subsequent loss in revenue. The worst affected was the fertilizer industry which suffered frequently interrupted gas supply and forced closures. The incumbent government’s previous power policy was to aim at resolving issues that plagued energy companies along with introducing alternatives to the country’s energy mixes to upgrade the average cost of electricity generation. Shocking no one, the output was measly and the problem still remained.
It’s a two-headed snake that bites Pakistan’s energy potential. We have abundant outdated and inefficient power plants and secondly, cash crunching often inhibits power plants to operate at favorable capacity simply due to the inability to purchase furnace oil. Here is a common example to clarify the aforementioned impasse: The given data on power plants working for the public sector usually have an installed capacity of over 4,800MW but the real generation stays stuck around 1,200MW. The result is pitiful.
The most unfortunate aspect of this fiasco is not the lack of finances or the fact that there is deep mismanagement at administrative level but that policy makers remain obstinate in their insincerity despite realizing that the current approach is not helping anyone, least of all the masses. What we need is an integrated national energy strategy developed by independent experts who keep public welfare as top priority and never fall prey to vested interests.