Power crisis

While on the one hand, there have been protests throughout the country against 16 hours' electricity load-shedding, on the other, the financial managers of the country have decided to put the full impact of high oil prices on the consumers' shoulders. In this regard a meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet was held under the chairmanship of Finance Minister Syed Naveed Qamar. To add fuel to the fire, the minister also broke the news of increasing the power tariff by 66 percent, which was earlier estimated at 61 percent. The government seems to be unconcerned about the problem, as there seems to be no intervention from its side to protect the consumers. The utility's management was closing down different units to blackmail the government into enhancing tariff, and to pay its outstanding dues to the gas and oil companies and Pepco and Wapda. The serious power shortage has risen to over 4,500 megawatts after saboteurs blew up gas pipelines, causing suspension of supplies from Zamzama and Pir Koh to some power plants and forcing Pepco to undertake "˜unannounced' load-shedding.

It is no secret that oil, coal and gas resources are declining not only in Pakistan but all over the world. The entire human life is dependent on the consumption of energy. From domestic uses to industrial, it is energy that matters. Any disruption in the supply or exploration of its resources brings human life to a halt. In addition to exploring alternative energy sources, coal deposits in Thar should be developed and used for power generation. It would also have a beneficial effect on the neglected area's economy. Now state-of-the-art technologies are available to minimise pollution levels of coal power projects.

They should be utilised to make it a successful enterprise in all aspects. Another aspect that is also more important in controlling the shortfall in the electricity requirement is the line losses and electricity theft. Wapda and KESC are notorious for line losses and without controlling this menace it is not possible to overcome the electricity shortfall. Wapda is also providing electricity to KESC, depriving its own consumers of the basic necessity of life. The question arises: what is the KESC top brass doing and why are they not fulfilling their responsibilities?

People have been holding protest demonstrations in all major cities of the country against unprecedented power shortages. Some of these protests turned violent in the form of attacking the distributing companies' offices. What makes matters worse is that Wapda has lately been resorting to unscheduled load-shedding in almost all cities. In addition to this, no schedule is announced for the shutdown of electricity. It seems that there is no management in Wapda and other distributing companies. The irony is that the consumers are receiving inflated bills in order to give cover to the illegal practice of Wapda and KESC corrupt staff. It is time the higher authorities seriously took up the issue of load-shedding and initiated immediate steps to provide relief to the harassed public