Energy: Enigma is Emulsifiable

By Maimuna Ashraf
Exclusive Article

It distresses when any news come into sight declaring Pakistan a failed state but it is more disturbing to see Pakistani institutions failing one after another. Few weeks ago Police surrounded and entered Tayyaba Mosque and the seminary attached to it in Muslimabad No 2 of Orangi Town on the information that Taliban Commander Mullah Akber was hiding in the mosque. However the Police failed in handling the situation when itself caught under fire and took refuge in Mosque after a violent reaction by residents. Similarly when angry residents staged protests in various localities against prolonged load-shedding, the Police which usually remain unable to arrest actual culprits and criminals also seemed confused to handle the situation. Railway condition also sets in same file, railway is considered as backbone of any state, In Pakistan at a time two hundred and twenty trains were used to move but now this statistic has reduced to ninety five. Total engines were five hundred however from these five hundred approximately three hundred and twenty are not in working condition, while from the rest 180 engines about hundred has been ground so the pressure of Pakistan’s Railway is shared up by eighty engines. Hence this institution is running speedily towards failure. Take the instance of another institution and have a look at civil aviation, from a total of twenty-nine aeroplanes about ten has run out. Hajj flights started from first October but by the time flights were getting delayed ultimately passengers have to weight for hours on airports. Subsequently who is happy with this institution! Likewise the foreign ministry is, we are yelling about American friendship since decades and forfeiting for Afghanistan since last forty years but today we are alleged for supporting terrorist by Americans and hundred of Afghans protest against us and our spy agency. Accordingly is our foreign ministry thriving? All these facts awfully speak of governance failure.
At this instant, who is not yelling for the most disastrous institution of current days! Yes WAPDA and PEPCO with energy crisis since last four years. Electricity deficiency is one of the most horrible troubles being faced by a common citizen of our country nowadays. It’s the root cause of number of crises including rapidly worsening economic conditions and business environment of country.
The total demand of electricity in Pakistan is sixteen hundred megawatt while in this summer we were struck with seven thousand megawatt short fall whereas normally the deficit remains three thousand megawatt. Lately load shedding touched peak due to in delay of 45 billions which government have to pay to IPPs and if government remains unable to pay this amount then about twenty nine IPPs will stop producing electricity. Twelve thousand megawatt is being produced, while from these twelve, IPPs produce six thousand megawatt while remaining six is being generated by WAPDA. Six thousand megawatt has been produced by twenty nine companies, out of which KAPCO and HUBCO provides the maximum amount while PEPCO has to pay billion of rupees to these companies. HUBCO and KAPCO lend fuel from PSO and these two companies have to pay billions to PSO, so it’s a chain when PSO stops their fuel grant, consequently these two companies stops the production of electricity. So the position is desperate all along and it’s very necessary to immediate injects a substantial payment. IPP has the capacity to produce more than six thousand megawatt electricity but hardly five or at least six thousand megawatt is currently being produced because of this lack of cash flow. So if the government doesn’t pay money, IPPs will not procure Furnas oil and ultimately there will be no electricity.
Twenty hour load-shedding was enforced on public who is already paying sky-diving electricity bills. When people strongly protested against this cruelty, other political parties launched aggressive reaction against government and federal government felt a red signal then a meeting was called in President House to thrash out the issue. As a result, in twelve hours things started getting better, MQM demands were honored again, they came back in government another time, orders were given to pay some money to IPPs which ultimately reduced the seven thousand megawatt shortfall to five thousand megawatt shortfall. If government can seek a temporary solution in twelve hours then it can definitely seek some better solutions to get rid of the energy crisis permanently in few months, which will definitely provide a better reason to boost up the election campaign of current government. Why not to work on these agendas for boosting election campaign rather than working on agendas like making new provinces etcetera.
In order to solve out any dilemma, it is tremendously significant to understand the root cause of any crisis. As far as the shortage of electricity is concerned, we continuously hear stories for setting up some new-fangled power projects and rental power projects etcetera. However the only thing which is constant in the way for achieving goals to overcome problems is the ‘change of dead lines’ to achieve ‘goals’.
Pakistan has a number of sources to generate electricity. The main source we have includes Nuclear, Thermal and Hydel. The main source for generating electricity in our country is Hydel. Besides many other projects, Terbela, Mangla and Ghazi Brotha have the capacity of 3478 MW, 1000 MW and 1450 MW correspondingly. Whereas if we add the capacity of other 10 small Hydel projects, the total capacity of WAPDA’s 13 Hydel Power Projects comes to 6461 MW. WAPDA’s 12 Thermal Power Projects have the capacity of producing 4811 MW electricity. Consequently, the WAPDA can produce 11272 MW through these two resources.
Four projects of KESC’s which are based on Thermal and Gas sources have the capacity of producing about 1756 MW. Independent Power Producers (IPPs) have a total capacity of producing 6365 MW. Two Nuclear based projects are approximately having the capacity of producing 462 MW. It is significant to add hat the capacity of Hydel Power Projects is dependent on the flow of our rivers. According to expert’s reports, the total capacity of producing electricity in Pakistan is 19855 MW. Subsequently for having this much of capacity for producing electricity, we should be one of the electricity exporting countries, but unfortunately we are being desolately failed to utilize even the required capacity in order to pull out the country and its economy from the short fall of thousands and thousands of Megawatt.
Hence the issue Pakistan having is not the shortage of resources, we are having enough capacity but we are lacking enough governance to manage these resources. We are just needed to fix the right hunk on the right place to crack the puzzle and it can be done through suppression of corruption and implementation of effective policies. Energy crisis is self-created enigma so only self-motivated governance can decipher it.

The writer is a freelance columnist and a regular contributor to pkarticleshub.com