Synergies 2011: Good management key to solving power crisis

‘But for poor policies, hydel power should have been enough for all our needs’.

LAHROE:

The only sustainable solution to the country’s power crisis is an efficient use of existing resources and search in the development of alternative sources of energy, said Pakistan Electric Power Company Chairman Tahir Basharat Cheema on Saturday.

He was speaking at the Synergies 2011 organised by the Global Management Club at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.

Cheema said the sooner it was realised that the economy needed to rely on its own resources and dependence on international assistance abandoned, the better it would be for the future of power sector in the country.

He said the efforts to add to the existing power generation capacity would be fruitless until the existing resources were properly managed. He said rampant corruption in the sector would render such efforts useless.

He said the power sector in the country had grown from producing 37 megawatts to 20,000 megawatts today.

He said had it not been for the poor policies, hydro power sources would have been enough to meet the country’s demand. “There was a time when hydel power was enough to meet 97 per cent of the electricity needs. Now, it has come down to 27 per cent. The rest of the demand is met by power generated by expensive sources (oil and gas),” he said.

Earlier, lawyer Ahmed Rafay Alam said that there was a need to cut down on the electricity consumption so that the areas that still lacking electricity could be provided with it.

He said there were lobbies and groups that had held all sectors in the country hostage to their vested interests and until these were abolished no solution would work.

GMC president Azam Dar said the event was organised to provide a platform for interaction between students and professionals. He hoped that it would enable business students to benefit from the experience of those leading the industry.

Speakers also advised the students about career prospects.

Other speakers on the first day were Wartsila Pakistan Pvt Ltd managing director Ghazanfar Mirza, Saeed Naeem Ullah Shah and Dr Sohail Aftab Qureshi, head of Engineering & Energy Conservation Department at the University of Engineering and Technology Lahore.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 27^th, 2011.