Scarcity of Energy

  

  Power supply is considered as the engine of growth. It leads to industrialization, advancement, agriculture boom, healthy lifestyle and transforms fate of nations.

  However, its scarcity halts the journey of states towards prosperity and progress. And, Pakistan is the prominent example of the fact.

  Right from its independence, power shortages and long hours of loadshedding have been the matters of daily routine and hampering the progress.

  It does not mean that the country has paucity of energy resources. Rather, there are certain other reasons of this chronic illnesses which demand immediate attention of the stakeholders.

  Primarily, irrational use of subsidies in the energy sector is the leading cause of the shortage of energy. The government spends almost 80 per cent of the total subsidies on this sector to compensate the losses due to electricity theft, line losses ,and poor governance. In other words, the subsidies hide incompetences of power supplying companies. Consequently, Pakistan has been facing the dilemma despite producing more energy than its demand.

  As per report of the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2022-23, the energy production is heavily reliant on thermal resources. Almost 60 per cent of the production comes from thermal resources for which Pakistan has to import oil and other petroleum products and it makes the sector prone to fluctuation of oil prices in the international market. Therefore, as Pakistan is a poor country, heavy price of  hydrocarbons in the market leads to decrease in the production of energy.

   Likewise, flawed policy making and short term measures have also aggravated the situation. For example, agreements with independent power producers, as a short term quick fix, in nineties have shifted the balance of energy mix in the favour of thermal resources. Resultantly, energy sector has become dependent on import of hydrocarbons and the shortages have got new heights due to petropolitics and price hike of petroleum products in the international market as mentioned in the earlier paragraph.

   To a greater extent, centralization of power, political instability, petty politics and heterogeneous nature of Pakistani society are the other causes of the challenge. Controversies and suspicions hovering around the construction of Kalabagh dam, a very viable option to overcome the shortages,  are the  manifestation of the reality. The proposed project can still bring huge relief but discussion about its construction is a hot potato for the people of KPK, Balochistan and Sindh due to trust deficit.

   Meanwhile, financial constraints, political instability and chaos and insecurity at local and regional level due to challenges like terrorism and border disputes have also left little time for the past governments to think over this issue.

   Today, at this critical juncture of the history, Pakistan's energy sector demands revolutionary changes. The policymakers have to bank on long term measures and devise well organized action plan to fix the issues by bringing good governance in the energy sector. They have to take initiatives to attract foreign direct investment for the production of energy from sustainable means like solar and wind energy resources, also beneficial for coping climate change. In this context, the authorities can request China to invest more in sustainable, renewable and green energy resources under CPEC projects. 

  In addition to this, the politcians have to play their role for building national consensus on projects like construction of Kalabagh dam by assuring the locals that they will get maximum benefits -jobs and electricity at cheaper rate- of these proposed project, once they are completed. Importantly, the stakeholders have to make best use of the foreign policy for importing cheap energy from energy rich neighbors like Iran and CAR's through completion of the projects like Peace Pipeline gas project and CASA1000.

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