KARACHI: Another long, hot summer is looming for Pakistan’s 160 million people, who are bracing for an inferno as the government yet again fails to meet basic electricity demand.
“This summer is going to be a nightmare and even more horrible than the one we suffered last year,” said Mohammad Atif, an official in the already steamy port city of Karachi.
He bought a small Chinese generator for 6,000 rupees ($75) and a 12,000-rupee battery to ensure uninterrupted power supply when the government grid collapses — as he is sure it will — under the massive demand for air conditioning, fans and air coolers during the summer.
“When I got home after a hectic day’s work in previous summers I sweated with the family most of the night. It affected my work and my kids’ studies. So we decided to spend our savings on some comfort.” Pakistan is enduring a catastrophic energy crisis, which is having a detrimental effect on consumers, suffocating industry and leading to widespread civil disturbance.
Officials say electricity generation falls short of demand by nearly 25 percent, or 5,000 megawatts, and blame it on inter-corporate debts, gas shortages, a creaking distribution system and lack of money to invest in energy sources.
“We are short of around 5,000 megawatts and will try to bridge this gap by the end of this year,” Tahir Basharat Cheema, spokesman for the Pakistan Electricity Power Company (PEPCO), told AFP.
As the global financial crisis has worsened Pakistan’s already parlous economic situation, few expect the situation to improve.
“We owe 159 billion rupees ($1.99 billion) to other companies while they owe us 269 billion rupees ($3.37 billion),” Cheema said.
Last year, Karachi blacked out when the local electricity company refused to pay the main power utility an outstanding $500 million.
The toll of this inability to keep the lights on is compounding other problems that also seem intractable, experts said.
“Increasing terrorism, poor economic conditions and power shortages have all contributed to psychological problems,” said psychiatrist Syed Ali Wasif.
Police recorded more than 2,500 cases of rioting in the city last year — mostly attributed to power failures which lasted up to eight hours a day as temperatures soared above 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).
Mobs angered by the blackouts hurled stones at passing cars and burned tires in Karachi and Lahore. In Faisalabad and Multan, protesters attacked power company offices and officials, injuring scores of them.
Officials fear similar protests this summer.
“There is little chance of improvement in the power supply this summer and we expect similar protests and riots too,” a Karachi police official said on condition of anonymity.
The root of the energy crisis lies in the unprecedented economic growth the country experienced earlier this decade — with a record 8.6 percent growth in 2004 — which was not met with a complimentary surge in power supply.
Experts say the long-term solution to the energy crisis lies in harnessing the country’s abundant hydro resources.
“We have identified hundreds of points on our rivers where small and medium sized dams could be established to generate tens of thousands of megawatts,” said Water and Power Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf. “We can generate as much as 40,000 megawatts if all these points are taken into account.” The government has no money and the economy is being propped up by a $7.6 billion line of credit from the International Monetary Fund.
Private investors are wary of uncertain and high costs in a politically and economically volatile country, distribution losses and environmental issues including compensation to resettle communities.
“We are examining a government package given to us which offers a set of fiscal and financial incentives,” said one potential investor who asked not to be named.
“Pakistan is again in the grip of political instability, which shakes our confidence because when a government is replaced by another, a sudden shift in policy appears and affects investor confidence,” he added.
Another untapped resource is the more than 175 billion tons of coal reserves beneath the southeastern Thar desert — which official studies show could generate 100,000 megawatts of electricity every year for 30 years.
The problem, again, is that enormous investment is required for the development of coal mines and related infrastructure.
According to the State Bank of Pakistan, industrial production fell 6.2 percent in the first half of the current July-June fiscal year — and the energy crisis is a contributing factor.
Textiles, the country’s largest export, have been hard hit.
“We have suffered a great deal due to electricity shortages which prevented us from meeting orders on time for billions of dollars from Western countries at Christmas and New Year,” said textile tycoon Zubair Motiwala.
He said textile exports fell six percent during the first half of the current fiscal year and scores of textile factories have closed. He feared the year ahead would be little better.
“We all know that new electricity generating plants can’t be installed in the blink of eye, it will certainly take time. But the government is taking action and we hope for a better scenario in summer 2010,” he said.
