Daily Times

There must be a method to the madness. These past few weeks have seen an increasingly wary administration, tired of the chronic crisis hung around its neck and desperate for any quick win. But as the premier floats different ideas revolving around Thar coal to stop the electricity bill hikes, his energy minister seems to have reached a strange conclusion, all on his own.

Awais Leghari’s very public acknowledgement of the fact that the vulnerable consumers in Pakistan were paying the highest electricity rates in the region had the whiff of a great first start.

To borrow words from Albert Einstein, “a problem well-defined is a problem half-solved.” However, his acknowledgement did little to change the perception of the masses and their sacrifices. Following the utopian ideals to the dot, he too believed that the government could save up to Rs 50 billion if citizens endured two hours of load shedding on a daily basis.

This stands in stark contrast to every election promise made in the last decade, especially by the PML(N), regarding zero load-shedding. And it is not like they can even boast about an uninterrupted power supply even now. The government may have added new adjectives to the outage but the general public already suffers from hours-long unannounced load shedding.

Whether it is inefficiencies in generation, transmission losses, underutilised plants or a general lack of interest by those in charge, the steep price is always paid by millions of sitting ducks perpetually waiting for an end to their suffering.

Considering how PM Sharif aims to bring down tariffs, staking his political future on the trickled-down positive impacts of affordable electricity on industries and the balance of payment problems, it can only be hoped that this time around, the temptation to focus only on optics would be resisted for the sake of sustainable growth. Pakistan needs an energy policy that prioritizes its people over the interests of the powerful, focusing on redefining protected classes, new agreements with independent power producers, and an eye on renewable energy sources. *