If you take away 3600 megawatts at Rs 2 per unit from the energy equation, then what you are left with is:

rising cost of energy, shortage of power, domestic and industrial load shedding, shut down of industry, slow down of investment, reduced exports and export revenues, low productivity, rising cost of industrial goods, decrease in jobs, increase in poverty and a virtual meltdown of the economy.

If you take away 6.1 million acre feet from the water equation, then what you are left with is:

Shortage of water for irrigation, for drinking, negative growth in agriculture, rampant food inflation, agriculture no longer contributing 60% of exports, no longer employing 40% of the total labour force and no longer a means of livelihood for 70% of the rural population. The net result, migration from rural to urban, another nail in the coffin of the economy.

The awam of course know nothing of all this and are busy cursing the government, the government also is not inclined to use this line of defence, for reasons best known to it, and is quite content to become the punching bag.

ENGR KHURSHID ANWER,

Lahore, June 19.