MULTAN/ WASHINGTON/ ERFURT, GERMANY/ ASHBY-DE-LA-ZOUCH, ENGLAND: In the month of May, the city of Multan, like the rest of Punjab, faced crippling power breakdowns, which extended from nine to fourteen hours daily. During this period, I visited Karachi twice and stayed in the city for several days. To my utter surprise, I only witnessed a 10-minute breakdown while staying in DHA.
I also visited Lahore where I have a house in DHA. The power breakdown in Lahore was even worse than in Multan where the shutdown extends from 12 to 16 hours daily. I fail to understand this unfair load management. If Pakistan has an acute electricity shortage, then this should be shared equally by all citizens of Pakistan. According to my host in Karachi, the KESC load management exempts localities like DHA, where the billing is over 80 percent, while in certain other localities, where the billing is as low as 56 per cent, there is loadshedding that varies from eight to twelve hours daily.
Why is there an unfair load management by the government in rest of the country? The worst power crisis is being faced by the people of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Balochistan and parts of interior Sindh, while in Karachi, the management is proportional to bill recovery as it should be. Ever since the 1990s, every government has ignored hydel power generation and resorted to more expensive modes of producing electricity because of attractive kickbacks. We have seen corrupt political, khaki and civil bureaucrats politicising every proposal to build dams for hydel power generation. Today, Pakistan is facing an economic nightmare because of corruption and the greed of a few.
Syed Jawaid Hussain
Published in The Express Tribune, May 29th, 2012.
