The Genie of Load Shedding is Out Again

As the mercury goes up demand for electricity far surpasses our generation capacity; the genie of load shedding is out yet again and going to haunt us for quite some time till the mother nature takes us to the next milder season. The recent un-expected heat waive in Karachi for last couple of weeks has claimed over 1250 lives. Neither the central nor the provincial governments are ready to accept the responsibility for the failure and are rather busy in putting the blame game on each other while K Electric due to the menace of nepotism and inadequate administrative capacity have failed the people of Karachi. Our national and provincial disaster management authorities are also ill equipped and ill organised to meet the natural calamities and are always late to react. Major political parties have been making fool of the masses in the successive election campaigns promising/ setting the deadlines to control the genie of load shedding; alas all to prove wrong. With the rapid urbanisation and resultant ever growing demand for electricity we have not been able to forecast and plan generation of the required megawatts thereby increasing the gap between demand and supply with every passing year.

Pakistan is blessed with all the four seasons and geographical variations from glaciated mountains to mighty rivers to fertile valleys to plains to prime deserts to the long virgin coastline. Pakistan is also blessed with huge untapped natural reservoirs of gas and coal. Simultaneously, Pakistan is a unique country where due to absence of adequate water storage capacity people are fighting with natural calamities like floods for one half of the year and for next six months the drought like situation. Violating the basic spirit of Indus Water Treaty and going against the accepted international rights of lower riparian , India has built huge water reservoirs and diverted our share of water for irrigation and electric generation facilities. Playing the ethnic and linguistic cards our short-sighted political leadership have missed the opportunities of building dams. Similarly, successive military dictators barring Ayub Khan could not pick up the courage to act against the popular political will; perhaps the biggest folly of Musharraf's regime was his backing out from the decision to build Kala Bagh Dam. Proposed Bhasha- Diamer Dam is going to take at least a decade before it bears fruit.

Our present electric generation/ installed capacity of 23000 MW is an amalgamation of oil, hydro , gas, nuclear, solar and imported sources with the average shortfall of 4000-5000 MW. Demand for power is increasing at an average rate of eight per cent per year and total figure is likely to rise to gigantic 40000 MW by 2025. Fluctuating oil prices in the International market, huge line losses due to ageing transmission lines and electric theft are the major causes of circular debt and thus the load shedding. Neelum- Jhelum Hydel project and Nandi Pur power project are behind the schedule while present limited generation capacity of Pakistan Solar Park in Cholistan Desert is insufficient to meet the growing demand of electricity.

The strategic CPEC has provided a much needed ray of hope for the depressed people of Pakistan. Over 33 billion US$ will be spent on varied power generation projects which will hopefully remove the darkness from the lives of people of Pakistan within next decade. There is a need for all the stakeholders to work in uni direction to make this strategic project a success. Forces against the progress and prosperity of Pakistan are all set to derail CPEC by employing all available means; proxies being their principal means. Fortunately, both political and military leadership are on one page for successful execution of CPEC. We hope that which each passing year the situation is going to improve and we will be able to harness the genie of load shedding in near future. The elements of corruption, nepotism, ethnicity, provincialism and inefficiency will have to be overcome and the political parties will have to rise above the petty politics to make the dream of Roshan Pakistan come true.
(The author is defence analyst based in Islamabad)