The power crisis continues to haunt the PML-N government after the completion of first year in office. Perhaps it doesn’t. Why else would the prime minister go to perform his Umra and not do something about this most pressing concern or at least show some solidarity for the hapless, power-less people?

The much talked about promises to turn the energy sector around, prior to the 2013 elections, and even after that, remain unfulfilled. The statement of the minister of Water and Power, Khawaja Asif, admitting his failure in providing the required electricity to the people and asking them to pray to God instead for rain, was the icing on the government’s incompetence cake.

So, one year down the road, the government has made no headway and has admitted that too; it falls short on both long and short term solutions to the problem. Agreed that there are no quick fixes to this mega crisis; the PPP government wanted to explore the option of rental power plants in the short term but that project was rejected by the Supreme Court.

What worries one most is that the problem is as much about electricity generation as it is about power distribution through the dilapidated infrastructure, resulting in huge line losses and power breakdowns. The ministry of water and power has accepted that the electricity transmission systems will collapse if more than 15000 megawatts (MW) of electricity is transmitted through it at one time. That means we need to invest and heavily in infrastructure.

The ghost of circular debt has reappeared in less than a year’s time. While the government paid the debt of Rs501 billion after assuming office, it has again swelled to over Rs285 billion.

While building big dams and relying on hydel power remain political quagmires, one way out is to turn to alternative sources of energy, such as solar, wind, biogas, and coal. Little or no attention has been paid by successive governments to tap the renewable energy sources in the past. This time, it is not all gloom and doom on this front. A few projects of solar and wind power generation are underway in Punjab, Sindh, and coastal areas of Balochistan, though their completion and utilisation remains to be seen.

As the government desperately looks for ways and means to pay the circular debt and increase power generation, the utility of power conservation cannot be totally ignored. To start with, opening and closing the markets earlier than their usual time, especially in the province of Punjab, could be a wise step.