Solutions to energy crisis

The difficulty in Pakistan is that we do not have any forum to discuss our national problems.

KARACHI: Ajaz Haque’s article of July 6 “The solution to Pakistan’s energy crisis” may help initiate a debate on a very important issue. The writer may be a layperson but he has analysed the problem very well and helped initiate a positive discussion. The difficulty in planning things in Pakistan is that we do not have any forum to discuss our national problems or any think tanks where ideas can be debated and formulated, and then presented to the government.

Many people also forget about our coal reserves in Thar. What became of the agreement between the Sindh government and a private party to set up a power generation plant using this coal as fuel?

Also, we have several rivers in the country and a programme to build small dams on them could help increase our water storage capacity. The problem is that there are now many people with vested interests who would like no solution to our acute energy and power crisis. These include importers and sellers of generators, those who provide UPS services, manufacturers of batteries and so on. Over time, they have become a powerful lobby against any meaningful solutions being adopted to tackle the problem.

Irshad Khan

Published in The Express Tribune, July 7^th, 2011.