Zahiruddin Babar
People are protesting about the increase in electricity bills, of course the government is well aware of the difficulties of the common man in this matter, but the question is how the price of electricity is increased, what are the hidden factors in this decision, actually.
It is important to keep in mind that Pakistan has to depend on furnace oil, coal, diesel or other imported fuels from abroad to meet its energy needs, so when the prices of these commodities increase in the global market, inevitably the price of electricity has to increase, another major reason is the expensive dollar, we need to understand that whatever Pakistan imports from abroad, it has to be paid in dollars.
As the government has to increase the price of unsolicited cloud power, another difficulty is that the power generation plants (IPPs) are also paid in dollars, which inevitably makes electricity more expensive.
An important aspect that should not be ignored is that the current caretaker government is forced to fully implement the agreements made by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf government with the IMF during its tenure.
It can be understood that when an international organization makes an agreement with any government of Pakistan, it is guaranteed by the state of Pakistan.
The result is that the State Bank is now free from government influence, the question now is what options are left for the government to deal with the challenge, one solution for the caretaker government is to artificially devalue the dollar. Try to control it, but according to economic experts, it may result in a burden on the country’s foreign exchange reserves, which will further increase our economic problems, this is also a big problem.
The IMF has already committed that it will not try to control the dollar artificially but its value will be determined in the open market, now the main question is how to get out of the energy crisis that Pakistan is facing. Economists agree that work on alternative energy projects in the homeland should be started on an emergency basis, the encouragement in this regard is that the PDM government has started work on many such projects during its tenure. For example, 10,000 megawatts of additional electricity from solar energy is now available to the National grid.
The Work on the plan to add to the grid is in progress, but the challenge is that more time is still required to complete the said project, on the other hand, the problem of electricity theft has been going on in the country for decades, which has not been controlled despite efforts.
The truth is that dishonest electricity users are being punished by honest consumers who not only use electricity without any manipulation but also never commit any delay in paying the bill, the bitter truth is that the government is still unable to recover the cost of power generation and transmission, as a result of which the government has to do load shedding on the one hand, while on the other hand the deficit of the power sector i.e. circular debt also increases. Is Undoubtedly because of the global climate the temperature has increased in most areas of the country, in such a way that the use of electricity by consumers has also increased, which has inevitably resulted in an increase in bills. The question is that in the above situation ,what the common Pakistani wants to do now, of course, the nation has to act sparingly in the use of electricity while recognizing the ground realities, both the common citizens and the business community have to adopt the ways of the citizens of developed countries regarding the use of electricity, e.g. In the modern world, it is preferred to deal with more and more issues in the sunlight, but unfortunately, the situation is completely reversed in our country, For example, most of the bazaars open from 11 am to 12 pm and close from 12 pm to 1 am.
Ironically, we Pakistanis are not willing to understand that we should minimize the use of electricity from 5 pm to 11 pm so that not only electricity can be saved but bills can also be significantly reduced. In order to facilitate the public, the government is also considering the proposal to privatize the electricity distribution companies so that an environment of competition can be created on the one hand while on the other hand, there may be a decrease in the habit of always declaring Pakistan responsible. We have to collectively act in order to minimize the issues of electricity going on. This is how nations get out of the crises always.
