President Clinton, while still in office once spoke to his office staff like this: “A bureaucracy is initially created for a certain definite purpose but as the time goes by, it gets ensconced in its perks and begins to forget about the real purpose for which it was created and instead directs all its attention to enhancing and protecting its perks until it completely loses sight of its original purpose”. He was warning them not to fall into such a trap.
This description fits perfectly no other bureaucracy in the world than that of our own country. Take the example of the Water and Power Development Authority; it has grown into a Frankenstein which has destroyed electricity in our country. I suggest that WAPDA should be totally abolished and be replaced by an electricity commission on the pattern of the Atomic Energy Commission. Its job should be to develop schemes to produce electricity only from indigenous resources of run-of-the-river, coal, gas, atomic energy, and the renewable forms. Generation houses should be privatised and run on no-imported-fuel basis. Under this commission the National Electricity Grid will take electricity to the doorsteps of all the small grid stations established in cities and rural areas by private companies which should be responsible for distributing electricity and maintaining lines to people’s homes, at a price determined by the electricity commission. All the grid station companies should also be allowed to build their own generation houses on the principle pointed out above. All the DISCOs should also be abolished and in its place electricity authorities at the district level under provincial governments should be created to auction off the grid stations in their own districts.
ALI AKBAR,
Muzaffargarh, July 18.