A fruitless effort

This refers to the letter, ‘The leaking bucket of energy’ (July 2) by Ejaz Ahmad Magoon. One cannot but totally agree with the writer. All efforts by the government at overcoming loadshedding will prove fruitless unless power theft and line losses are effectively controlled. In addition, old generators running below their rated capacity also contribute towards power shortages. And, who knows how many generators might be lying unserviceable for petty work and not contributing anything to the national grid.
Now we have been told to wait till the end of 2017 when most of the projects started by the incumbent government are on board. But more power would mean more theft. It is just like encroachment. You may construct roads as wide as runways but unless you control encroachments they would be of no use at all. Moreover, another issue is the flexibility in meeting projects’ deadlines. The delay in the completion work of the new Islamabad Airport is a case in point. With this criminal delay, the construction cost has gone up from Rs37 billion initially to around Rs100 billion. Who is responsible for this delay? People have been braving loadshedding for a long time and they need some relief now – not some two or three years later. If the government could control power theft and line losses there would be enough electricity.
Air-Cdre (r) Azfar A Khan
Rawalpindi