Daily Times

The devil lies in details. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif stands at a critical juncture as he takes shots in the dark to prove he is fit for the daunting job but to his ill fortune, success depends on one’s backbone, not a wishbone.

Now, to propose a paradigm shift in the country’s energy equation in a bid to reduce the government’s burden by an overwhelming six billion dollars may have appeared (inside the cosy PMO) destined for overnight success. After all, every financial expert worth his salt has, over the years, advised Islamabad to pay heed to its burgeoning energy imports. The much-talked-about capacity charges our inflation-battered masses are forced to cough out every month would drastically go down if Pakistan were to use local lignite as opposed to imported coal. Nevertheless, wild ambitions are not horses and there’s only so much goodwill press can do for any government. The fantastically-sounding suggestion could only work wonders if the Chinese power plants agreed to start using Thar coal as a raw material.

Less dependency, less foreign exchange spending and a couple of other buzzwords rely on a big “If,” which is already questionable given the Chinese authorities’ insistence on running the Gwadar power plant on imported coal. But since politics is the art of the possible and those sitting in the highest echelons of power can be expected to pull some rabbit out of their hat to earn the approval of their Chinese counterparts, how do they plan on railroading through a process that will take well above a few years to materialise? Then again, the relatively poor quality of our coal and its significant distance from the notable power plants (especially Sahiwal) stand as major obstacles. What about the well-documented evidence from an explosion at a power plant in Karachi that injured five workers and caused suspension of operations for five months because the Thar coal’s high moisture content rendered it highly self-ignitable from the looks of it, the government does appear determined to find out some solution to the people’s backbreaking burden. However, between a decision to terminate agreements with IPPs and unverifiable albeit feel-good declarations by the federal cabinet, they clearly want to go down the rabbit hole of nonbeing. *