The third element of the strategy announced by the Council on Common Interest (CCI) — collecting more than Rs300 billion in outstanding electricity bills — has more promise. Given the fact that the majority of these bills, about Rs155 billion, are owed by the federal and provincial governments themselves, they may want to start off by paying their own dues. Over the longer run, however, the government needs to fundamentally reform the power sector. The special cabinet committee on the energy crisis has reportedly come up with a formula for doing so, which involves ending the unaffordable subsidies, followed by a restructuring and eventual privatisation of the power generation and distribution companies. This should be followed through, because failure to reform may result in lights going out, all over Pakistan, for an uncomfortably long time.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 14th, 2011.
COMMENTS (1)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
all provinces should have their own renewable energy, so we can offset shortage of electricity.
like blochistan and sindh have ocean currents they can better uttilize wind power. sindh also use solar power. blochistan can work with wind for its demand that is very small.
solar power and hydel power for kp and punjab
kashmir gilgit hydel power and solar power.
we need to make more power stations because of growing demand.