The prolonged power outages, in the trademark sizzling heat of the month of May, have made living conditions in the country quite unbearable. With this May warmer than average, and with power outages of close to 16 hours on average, the physical and mental health of the masses, are both in danger. The nation’s agony has brought to life the Senate Standing Committee on Water and Power provoking it to snub the top bureaucrat in the Ministry for favouring a handful of VVIPs with 1,000MW, a disproportionately huge chunk compared with the 7,000MW allocated to the rest of roughly 180 million commoners. The malady does not stop at giving sleepless nights and stressful days, crying children and helpless parents, protest demonstrations and torched tyres; it also gives rise to an equally debilitating affliction of the waterless water taps. That blows up the misfortune of power loadshedding into a real tragedy, with a jumble of emotions – pain and suffering, desperation and disillusionment, anger and fury – writ large on every face one sees.
All eyes are riveted on the incoming government of Mian Nawaz Sharif, and whether he feels the pinch in his air conditions new accommodations, once settled in. The task force he has constituted has reportedly come up with a remedy that has allowed him to proclaim that the people will see the difference, not in the first 100 days of his rule, but in just a month. Buying oil on deferred payments, and straightaway help in monetary terms from the Saudi government, is the talk of the town and that could immediately bring on line idle thermal power stations. The question of ensuring that all who utilise the electricity generated, eventually pay for it, is a difficult one to answer, and remains to be seen in the capacity of the new government. As of today, power thefts are rife in certain parts of the country: Karachi with its trademark kunda and the tribal areas and Balochistan with the adamant demand of getting free electricity as their birthright. It is ironic that Punjab, that suffers the most on account of loadshedding, has the distinction of paying 98 percent of its billing. Mian Sahib might assign the task of collection to a private business concern. The PML-N leader and nominated Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif has pointed a finger at the caretakers for their nonchalance in the face of the people’s continuing agony and urged them to do something concrete to provide relief. Sadly, some days of despair yet lie ahead till PML-N delivers, although, even before they have come into government, the tremendous expectation they have generated, may help and hinder them both.