Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif started efforts to solve the problem of load shedding immediately after taking over the government but the problem has not only persisted but also its severity could not be reduced. The good thing is that the prime minister is aware of the situation, and his cabinet and the party is working to find out a solution.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in a five-hour-long meeting expressed his indignation over the officers of the concerned departments and said that they should do anything but there should be no load shedding for more than two hours. Another PML-N leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi even offered “sorry” for the prevalent load shedding and said that issues would be solved in the coming days. He told a press conference that there existed a power shortfall of 4,000 megawatts and the government was in need of time to make right the power crisis. The reality is that the shortfall has exceeded 8,000 MW.
Abbasi said that authorities had to go for a four-hour load shedding across the country due to the shortfall. Again, he needs to be correct that load shedding is more than eight hours on certain days. The prime minister wants to reduce the load shedding time to 3.5 hours, adding that the next phase would involve the import of coal which would reduce load shedding below three hours by June 16, and by June 30, the power shutdowns would be between 1.5-2 hours.
Facts can vary but the reality is that the government is determined to end load shedding as it did back in 2017.
According to Information and Broadcasting Minister Maryam Aurangzeb, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has called for an emergency plan to reduce load shedding within 24 hours and directed for its effective implementation. The prime minister has also rejected the explanations and reports of ministers and officials regarding load shedding. It should be noted that the power shortfall has exceeded 6,000 MW while 14 hours load shedding is ongoing.
According to Power Division sources, the total power generation in the country is 19,135 MW and the demand is 26,000 MW. The Prime Minister was told after the first review of the load shedding problem in the early days of the government that more than two dozen power generating plants in the country were in a state of disrepair or lack of fuel due to lack of maintenance and within a few days By activating them, load shedding will be completely eliminated as the system has the capacity to generate more electricity than the demand.
After this, the claims of the Federal Minister of Energy also continued to adorn the media that load shedding was not taking place anywhere in the country but the problem could not be overcome. The reason offered was that all the plants have been activated, which were earlier closed due to the lack of fuel for which import orders have been placed. As soon as this problem is resolved, power generation will start at full capacity and there is no need for load shedding in any part of the country.
However, all these claims proved to be daunting tasks. The prime minister also rejected all the explanations of the authorities concerned and ordered that there should be no load shedding for more than two hours anywhere in the country.
If only this order of the Prime Minister could control the load shedding, it would mean that the capacity to generate electricity almost as per the demand is present in the system and the reason for the turmoil is simply the inefficiency of the officials concerned which could be fixed and measures must be taken and arrangements must be made in this regard. But if the implementation of this order proves to be practically impossible, then it will be necessary to determine and treat the real causes of load shedding.
The prime minister has initiated progress in this direction by issuing instructions to work out short and long-term plans for elimination of load shedding, work on affordable and abundant power generation projects and utilize all resources for this purpose. But in view of the economic challenges facing the country today, allocating government resources for these projects does not seem easy. However, one possible solution to the problem is to enable people across the country to generate their own electricity from solar energy.
People are already taking advantage of this on their own, but the government can enable the private sector to solve this problem by providing facilities for this purpose, a healthy competitive environment, and easy access to loans from banks to consumers. By generating more electricity, people can supply to the national grid and thus help in alleviating power shortage and also get a good source of income in this way.
The writer is a freelancer and he tweets from @PirAdnanBodla