Assignments

PROBLEM:

The load shedding-driven sleepless nights and disrupted daily routines of last summer are still haunting the people as the weather turns hot. The situation has not improved since last year; indeed all the signs are that it is getting worse. Credit goes to brave Pakistanis for surviving through the winter despite 10-hour power and gas load shedding. But in the upcoming summer when the mercury is going to consistently hover round 40°C, occasionally rising to 50°C in some places, a power crisis of a similar order is going to prove unbearable. Last summer the national media reported tragic deaths due to heatstroke and dehydration. The energy crisis in winter forced thousands of industries to shut down operations, affecting industrial production and the livelihoods of thousands of families’ problems

Electricity consumers all over the country are enduring long hours of load shedding 6 to 12 hours on a daily basis in the wake of prevalent crisis that has crippled civic life as well as trade , industry and commerce. For past few years, Pakistan is facing unprecedented energy crisis. There is a shortage of about 3,500 Megawatt (MW) in the electric power. The energy consumption of Pakistan’s per capita is only 15 MMBtu, as compared to the world Average of 68 MMBtu. It is essential for Pakistan to increase its per capita energy availability and consumption to at least 50% of the world level to about 35 MMBtu in the medium term (2012- 2020)

SUMMARY:

There is massive power load shedding across the country, factories and plants are closing down, manufacturing businesses and exports are down, unemployment and poverty is increasing, there are riots on street, train and public property are being set on fire. Government’s response? Implement the short term energy project initiated in 2007 through rental power plants to eliminate load shedding and work con currently on other medium and long term thermal and hydel projects. Sensible indeed but not so to our perpetual...