Is There Any Way Out To Pakistan Endless Energy Crisis?
By: Muqadas Urooj
Tags: Crisis, Energy, Solution, Pakistan, Problems To Solve

In the time of such technological advancement, Energy has become the key to success for any nation of the world; the more the Energy, the more longtime stability is there because it is a universal phenomenon that the socio-economic progress of a state significantly depend upon the performance of energy sector as the energy sector is the engine of growth and development in agricultural, industrial, empolymental, defense and developmental issues of a country. It would not be surprising to say that Energy is the right hand of any developed country.

Unfortunately, Pakistan is among those countries facing an extreme amount of energy crisis; hence, it is evident that due to this loop, Pakistan is far behind the age of its development and prosperity, where it must be nowadays certainly. Now there arise many questions that why Pakistan not been able to achieve its energy demands yet? What are the obstacles in the way to sort out the energy crisis? Where are we making mistakes? What to do now? What are the solutions to energy crises?

At the time of Pakistan’s creation in Pakistan was a cultivated country. Within the ten years, Natural gas discovered at Sui in Balochistan, Pakistan, also embarked on industrialization and established new refineries in Karachi that relied on cheap imported crude oil. By the 1970s, Pakistan had developed a natural gas infrastructure that replaced coal in urban homes and enabled large fertilizer plants to be established. The reliance on gas has continued to the present day.

However, the crisis began even before 1980. Unfortunately, after 1971, due to Pakistan’s break-up (with the establishment of Bangladesh), to political turmoil, and military rule, little attention was given to the development of power generation. With massive power black-outs occurring in the early 1990s, the government of Benazir Bhutto invited the private sector to quickly establish thermal power plants in Pakistan through the introduction of attractive private power policy. This policy continues to this day.

MAJOR MISSES OF PAKISTAN IN THE PAST;

The government of Pakistan had passed with many curricle stages, so a country’s development also used to be impacted. From 1985 to 2005, large energy-related projects were explored. However, they could not be developed due to an incompetent bureaucracy, political squabbling, and security issues; here are the two major misses that Pakistan had made due to its immature government. Now, still, these mistakes are regrettable to all nations.

a) In 2005, the Shenhua, a Chinese energy company, offered to establish a coal power project in Thar for an attractive tariff of 5.7 cents per kilowatt (kW). Both the provincial gov of Sindh and the federal government endorsed the project. However, the WAPDA bureaucracy rejected the offer because it thought Shenua’s tariff offer was too high. Ironically, today Pakistan is offering a tariff rate to initiate Thar coal power projects that more than 50 percent was higher than the 5.7 cent one proposed by Shenhua in 2005.

b) The Kalabagh dam project was conceived over 50 years back. It is seen as particularly advantageous due to its accessible location in Punjab province and the ease of construction (at least relative to other large dams in northern Pakistan). This dam is projected to cost half of the price of the Diamer Bhasha dam (which is being developed today), and its projected construction period (three years) is about a third of the time that Diamer Bhasha is expected to take to be built. In addition to 3000 MW of hydel power generation, the Kalabagh dam would also boast the capability to draw water for irrigation in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces. The dam’s construction is not supported by Sindh province, which worries that some of its water allocations would be diverted. And yet the dam would offer tremendous advantage for Pakistan and Sindh specifically: Global warming effects are causing frequent floods in Punjab and Sindh, and the Kalabagh dam would quickly reduce the impact of these floods.