Powerless people

The beginning of summer has arrived with a special wrath. Power outages, notably in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, exceed anything seen before. People have come out on the streets in anguish. There has been little official word on the scale of the problem and what is being done about it, but the general perception seems to be that things will worsen as temperatures rise and demand for electricity increases. A shortfall of over 4,800 megawatts is already being reported. This translates into seven or eight hours of loadshedding in Lahore and up to 20 hours in smaller towns. Peshawar, too, has been badly hit. The erratic nature of the power cuts make matters worse.

Unsurprisingly, as workshop and factory owners as well as others who can only watch as their businesses collapse, contemplate financial ruin in times that are already hard, people have come out onto the main GT Road and the streets of Lahore to register their protests. Smoke rises from burnt tyres. But does anyone see it? Is anything being done to deal with the ruin people face? Textile workers, fearing layoffs, have already ransacked the offices of power companies. But the minions who face their wrath are themselves unable to do anything to tackle the situation. Only policies made at a far higher level can achieve this.

But we see no evidence that such policies are being devised. While there have been offers from various countries in the neighbourhood to sell power at reasonably cheap rates to Pakistan, these have not been taken up. There seems to be a lack of clarity about what other schemes are being devised. Certainly, things over the past few years have continued to worsen stage by stage. The result is crippled factories and a consequent downturn as far as the economy goes. This is not something we can afford — but the question is, who will come to the aid of powerless people who feel only a sense of helplessness as the lack of power hits lives everywhere?

Published in The Express Tribune, April 30^th, 2011.