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WEEKLY
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| Preventing gas, power, water, wastage |
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may save $6bn a year
Thursday, November 05, 2009
By Mansoor Ahmad
LAHORE: The scarcity of resources in Pakistan has been compounded by the unwarranted wastages such as electricity transmission losses, gas losses due to inefficient appliances, water losses in the absence conservation methods and post-harvest losses in agriculture.
The News found that prevention of these losses would increase productivity, efficiency and foreign exchange savings to the tune of over Rs500 billon ($6 billion) annually and boost the economy without any foreign assistance.
A study by The News found that the country could improve its growth rate without any foreign assistance if the above losses are brought down to reasonable levels. It was also found that improvements in many of these cases would not require cash but only prudent, effective and transparent regulators. Where investment is required the amount would be many times lower than adding further capacities.
There is acute shortage of natural gas in Pakistan particularly during winter when the domestic consumption almost doubles. The experts have pointed out and the gas distributors and regulators are fully aware that our domestic gas appliances have only 30 per cent efficiency that means 70 per cent of the gas used is wasted. If the domestic home appliances particularly gas room heaters and geysers are standardised by regulators there would be no need for gas load shedding during winter. The industrial production would not suffer and exports would increase. This would require no government funds.
The water conservation techniques would not require even 1/10th of the amount needed to build a mega dam. That does not mean that new dams are not needed. We can plan new dams to stop wastage of average 32 MAFs water that we throw in the sea.
However the water availability would increase by at least 30 per cent if all the irrigation canals were lined. There would be 30 per cent less use of water in the farms if the fields were levelled with laser levellers for which few billion rupees would be needed. This could help the country increase its cultivation area by 20-30 per cent and increase agricultural productivity.
The distribution and transmission losses in electricity amount to over 25 per cent in PEPCO and 40 per cent in KESC. PEPCO produces around 11,000 to 12,000 MW electricity for its distribution systems. The electricity shortages range from 1500 MW to 3500 MW. If the system losses are brought down to internationally accepted 8 per cent, the system would have additional 17 per cent or 1,870 MW to 2,040 MW electricity in the system. Even if half of the wastage is due to theft we can add 935 MW to 1,020 MW in the system by upgrading transmission lines that would require small amount.
Post harvest losses in Pakistan account for 30 per cent of wastage in vegetable and fruits and 708 per cent in food grains like rice and wheat. Most of the post harvest losses are due to faulty storage and packaging. The farmers lose billons in post harvest losses and the nation risks its food security because of these losses that could be controlled through prudent regulations. For instance agricultural experts have recommended that instead of stuffing 100 - 125 kg potatoes and onions in jute bags regulations should be enacted to pack them in 50 kg arable plastic net bags to reduce losses. Similarly farmers should be provided with small tin silos of 1500 - 2000 kg to store grains a practice Food and Agriculture Organization has promoted in many developing countries.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
