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Thursday March 28, 2024

Plunged in darkness

By Iftekhar A Khan
April 22, 2017

Fleeting moments

In April, an early spell of heatwave flattened the tall claims of the government that loadshedding was to be eradicated. The water and power minister, Khawaja Asif, said that loadshedding could go up to 12 hours in the coming days. The minister, who is never at a loss for words, squarely blamed the unexpected heatwave for the prolonged power outages.

Curse the heatwave for hitting us unannounced, but the dilemma of loadshedding is an old one. The demand for power outstrips its supply. We haven’t added any hydropower projects to the power grid system despite the availability of resources. To talk about building the Kalabagh Dam is like committing political hara-kiri. Mian Nawaz Sharif, during one of his earlier tenures, once talked about building it, but he had to bow out. Neither Gen Musharraf talked about it nor does the self-proclaimed crusader for national causes – Imran Khan – mention it.

People in rural areas don’t pay power bills because they cannot afford to do so. How can a household earner taking home Rs15,000 a month in rural areas, afford to pay Rs3,000 as power bill?

However, the ongoing census is likely to surprise us all: it will show how much we have grown over the years. The progress in human expansion has remained unhindered and exponential.

And it’s not just the energy sector. Almost all utility services, including the two basic human needs in a society – health and education – fail to meet the population’s requirement. Keeping private schools, colleges and hospitals aside, the facilities provided by the government are insufficient and do not meet the requirements of the majority of people. This becomes more important given the fact that the second tenure of five years of uninterrupted democratic rule will end in few months time. Even though the PPP has nothing to show for its performance during its last tenure in power, the de facto party chairperson, Asif Zardari, claims to form the next government.

The unfortunate part of our type of democracy is that it does not address serious issues facing the nation. The remote and backward areas suffer the most. For instance, in many villages in Dera Ghazi Khan, the electric supply lines remain scattered in the streets instead of remaining mounted on electric poles. The political leadership in Punjab is more interested in undertaking high-profile projects in main cities rather than caring for the far-flung rural areas in southern Punjab.

Similarly, a 30-mile stretch of main road leading from Turkish charity hospital in Muzaffargarh district to the Ghazi Ghat Bridge on River Indus is in dire need of repair. Long-bodied commercial vehicles ply this road to travel back and forth to Balochistan. Many a time the traffic on this road remains blocked for the whole night because of frequent accidents caused by tractor trolleys overloaded with sugarcane. When two such trolleys, bulging on both sides with sugarcane, cross each other on a single road, it’s time to pray, otherwise be prepared to spend a night on the roadside in wilderness. A road with similar intensity of heavy traffic in central Punjab could not be neglected for so long.

Nevertheless, good old Wapda may have transformed into various Discos such as Lesco, Mesco, Fesco, Pesco and what not, but the sad commentary is that darkness rules for long hours.

The writer is a freelance columnist based in Lahore.

Email: pinecity@gmail.com