ISLAMABAD: Thirty-two thousand villages in the country are without electricity. They can be provided electricity through solar power, Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF) president Mian Zahid Hussain on Friday. “These villages are not connected to the national grid. So supplying electricity to them will be a very costly and difficult task. There are some 18,000 villages which get electricity only for a few hours every day,” he said. Hussain said that solar power could be used to change the lives of the people of far-flung villages. “Other renewable resources should also be used. This is imperative to bring these people into the mainstream of development,” he said. He said that there were around 50 million animals in the livestock sector and half of its waste could help produce twelve million cubic meters of biogas that could lighten up lives of millions. “Moreover, three million megawatts of electricity can be produced through solar power. The potential of wind power has been estimated at 0.35 million megawatts,” he said. The business leader said that utilising renewable resources would reduce dependence on imported fossil fuel resulting in reduced health costs. “Reports of global institutions say that agriculture is the most import part of the South Asian nations, but not a single country has used its potential for development or used agricultural waste to produce power,” he said. Published in Daily Times, July 29th , 2017.