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Shaukat on flawed energy
policy
FORMER Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has frankly admitted that the energy
consumption in Pakistan had increased rapidly and his Government could
not foresee the huge demand to be created by the growing economy. In an
interview in New York, he attributed the shortage of electricity in the
country to unprecedented huge energy demands.
No one would disagree that the shortage has been created due to abnormal
demand but the question arises why the economic managers could not
foresee the rising demand and take necessary measures well in time to
prevent the crisis. It is true that the economic indicators improved
during tenure of Mr. Shaukat Aziz and the element of prosperity led to
increase in per capital income that in turn resulted into enhanced
consumption creating huge demand for energy. But it was the job of the
policy-makers and especially those in the Ministry of Water and Power
and WAPDA to have visualized the situation and taken measures to meet
the challenge. In fact, the then planners argued that surplus and idle
capacity was counter-productive and sat with their legs crossed till the
country was confronted with serious energy deficit. Power plants are not
established overnight and even if we proceed ahead with speed now it
would take about three to four years to overcome the power deficit. By
then, the demand would also increase and we hope the policy-maker would
take care of this aspect. Similarly, we must discourage unplanned growth
as we are witnessing in the case of alarming increase in the number of
vehicles resulting into traffic jams and unbearable increase in the oil
import bill.
