The daylight game

The government is planning an energy summit at the end of this month to discuss the energy crisis.

In the face of an energy crisis that threatens to get worse with the summer heat, the government, according to a report in this newspaper, is planning an energy summit at the end of the month. A meeting to be chaired by the prime minister and attended by all chief ministers will hopefully tackle a problem that only seems to be getting bigger with each passing year. But we cannot really be confident of solutions. The measures to be put forward offer no obvious improvement on those from previous years and revolve essentially around the same ideas: Moving clocks an hour forward to save daylight, a five-day working week, the closure of markets by 8pm and the turning off of street lights at night.

We have, over the two years since 2008 when these measures were put in place, seen no evidence that such measures helped save energy or eased the power shortfall that results in shutdowns for up to 18 or 20 hours in some parts of the country. Scientific evidence based on Pakistan’s latitude would also suggest that Daylight Saving Time serves little purpose in a part of the world where there is an abundance of light. This is one reason why daylight saving is not a common practice in the region. Enforcing it in the middle of summer, just days away from the summer solstice when sunlight patterns begin to change again, makes even less sense. We have seen in the past widespread displeasure with the measure which people feel simply complicates life, while shopkeepers, facing times that are already tough, will undoubtedly be up in arms about an early closure, drastically reducing shopping time. In the context of inconvenience to people, the two-day holiday is hardly a move that will be welcomed either. So far people have seen no relief from load-shedding as a result of these measures. That is what they seek most of all and planners must make this their priority at a summit that will also take up issues of gas sharing between provinces and the provision of gas to CNG stations.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 12^th, 2011.