Due to inadequate planning in power generation, we are unable to meet our growing energy requirements. In my view, this is because of rapid population growth as much as because of our failure in starting construction of the multi-purpose Kalabagh dam. After more than six decades of our existence, we have now started to look for alternative energy sources and are making do with half-baked energy saving measures at a time when energy needs of burgeoning population has shot up too far higher than what is being produced from our hydel, thermal and nuclear resources. Ignoring the dire need of Kalabagh dam is not the only crime we have done. We have also not been able to exploit the huge coal reserves we had found in Thar and elsewhere in the country and have done nothing about solar energy either despite the abundant sunshine we have in this country. We have only now started looking for civil nuclear technology for power generation just when we have sunk deep troubled waters up to our necks. Now we are talking solar energy, coal-fired power plants and civil nuclear technology, all in the same breath. We can develop and exploit coal reserves as well as solar energy even now even though all this should have been done much earlier through proper advance planning. Still better late than never -ASIM MUNIR, Rawalpindi, June 16.