Sit-ins, protests and shutting down of the country will damage the authorities’ efforts to resolve the energy crisis
WAH CANTT: On December 12, there was no electricity for 12 hours in two provinces of the country. There was a functional fault in the National Power Control Centre (NPCC) that caused a huge breakdown at the Mangla, Tarbela and Ghazi Brotha power stations, affecting electricity supply to various cities of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The problem was resolved with efforts of the engineers but this power collapse left a question for the nation: what have our political parties done in the last 20 years with regard to our energy crisis?
We are being punished for the wrong steps taken 20 years ago. If Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif had inducted the IPPs only as a short-term measure, and launched hydropower projects for the long term, the Kalabagh Dam today would have been storing 6.1 million acre feet of surplus floodwaters, generating 3,600 megawatts of power and the oil-guzzling IPPs would have been retired long ago. If big projects were started at that time, then the big problems we face today, like power shortages, water shortages, lack of jobs, hunger, the poor resultant state of the economy, etc. would not have plagued Pakistan. However, we have still not reached the point of no return; even now, the construction of the Kalabagh Dam can solve most of our problems and if political parties cannot come to a consensus on the issue, then we should go for the early construction of the Diamer-Bhasha and the Dasu Dams. But to start these huge projects, there is need for political stability in the country. The government has taken steps to start the projects but the current political crisis, which has seen sit-ins, protests and shutting down of the country will damage the authorities’ efforts to resolve the energy crisis.
Muhammad Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, December 16th, 2014.
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