Power crisis deepens but how & why?
The editorial flashed today Saturday 24th October, 2008 in The Post on the above subject is not only very comprehensive but awfully eye opening too provided one cares to read it carefully.
I am out of my beloved country ever since 1976, which is quite a long period to be honest (many were not even born then), but thanks to the advanced electronic media, that despite the long distance between Kuwait and Pakistan, I am very much back home not only daily basis but even at each hour of any day whether working or off.
Power is power and none could survive without it and hence its importance simply can not be over looked and or under estimated by us under any circumstances whatsoever. Power is one of the very basic necessity which undoubtedly is needed by all, whether a human being and or an industry, and in its absence, it will not be possible either for the individual and or for the industry to survive what to talk of flourish. If I am not mistaken, power scarcity was first experienced in big cities like Karachi, Lahore & Islamabad etc but gone are the days when only big cities were in trouble and now the problem is faced even by those who live in smaller towns. Hardly any one day passes when there is no protest and or agitation held in any city about power shortage and truly speaking the problem is increasing day by day rather than decreasing. One can read views, articles, commentaries and criticism in all dailies about the shortage of electricity but the question is as to how this will produce more electricity to cater the demand?
Honestly speaking, if I am not a loud mouth, it can be punctuated with full conviction that this problem is not new for us and for quite many years we have been experiencing the shortage of power but still, one way or the other, we could carry the dirt and the abuse but now it has dramatically and completely gone out of proportion. The men and women either in their houses or offices can not avoid the wreath of power shortage and, whether they like it or not, they are compulsorily subjected to power shut downs and that too on daily basis. The industrial units on the other hand, irrespective of their sizes and locations, are primarily run by power and therefore their machineries will have to stop working when the electricity is off which, as such, is much too much damaging from economic point of view. It goes without saying that the power is off in both cases when either the sun shines and or the stars twinkle and its absence period varies and not necessarily it should be strictly exactly the same as has been announced by the official authorities in advance. The news could be that power will be for two hours in such and such locality from this time to that time but it is more in theory than in practice.
What could be the reasons as to why we can not solve this problem? Has the population grown much more which in turn increased the demand for more power? Can we say that too many additional industrial units have sprung which multiplied the demand of the electricity? Have our power generating units run down? Are we short on technical manpower to run all the power stations? Let me go a step forward by asking as to what is the role of our worthy minister in this connection, if at all he has some, other than accusing his predecessors or for that matter the earlier government. As an honest person, I am neither imputing the present minister nor hurling stone at the previous minister but the fact remains that now Pakistan faces much more problems than what had been the case a year before or even earlier. What relief has been provided to the masses by the minister who belongs to the majority ruling member since he took over the ministerial position a few months back? What stops him to at least reduce the problems if not solve the problems? I am neither an astrologer nor a numerologist to predict as to what is going to happen in future, be it near or distant, but yet would dare to pronounce that the minister will be glued to his seat even if the situation goes still the more worst. Summing up, I believe, though do not wish, that the poor economic trodden masses will keep on facing the hell and the brunt whereas the minister himself, his two bosses, colleagues and the rich will either continue enjoying uninterrupted supply of electricity or God forbid they will alternatively use their own generators so how and why the problems be solved. It will be more criminal than immoral on my part not to applaud the efforts of the most respected President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gillani who have always taken notice of the fast deteriorating and depleting situation of the electricity and issue necessary instructions to provide relief to the citizens. Who on the face of earth, if any, can open his / her mouth in case if our above mentioned VVIPs do not bother to instruct the concerned persons to look after the neglected ones? How about commending the brain, much superior to Plato & Aristotle put together, who suggested that power shortage can be solved through increasing the rate per unit? Who does not know that the government did increase the charges even without meeting the demand and it is of no consequence that the people instead of paying the bill, tore them or burnt them instead? I wish you be a judge and decide purely on merit if the present minister for power has earned laurels or defamation instead.
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