No light at the end of the tunnel

Frequent power outages are taking a toll on businesses across Pakistan, Al Jazeera said in a report published on Thursday.
Most businesses and households go without electricity for at least 12 hours a day, making life extremely difficult. “The power goes off for one hour and then comes back for an hour,” Ali, a tailor explains. “So it is every other hour that we are without power. And on Sundays it goes for three hours at a stretch,” he told Al Jazeera. Ali said he relied on a generator to keep things running, but at a cost of roughly $125 a month. He cannot afford to run it as regularly as he would need to keep his business ticking over. The cost, he said, would be much greater if he kept the air conditioner running. But, he explains: “For me that is not an option; it is an expense that I cannot bear.”
“When I have to ask my six to seven workers to stay back to finish the customers’ orders that we have, I have to order food for them and keep the generator and electricity going for longer.” “I can neither say no to the customers, nor can I always deliver. I don’t see a way out of it. We can barely make ends meet. We can’t run the sewing machines without electricity and in the evening, without lights, we cannot even cut the fabric because it is difficult to see.” Despite the difficulty, Ali admits he is among the luckier ones.
The situation is much worse in rural areas, where outages last for 16 to 20 hours a day. The electrical hide and seek makes it impossible to plan work. Over the past couple of years, the situation has deteriorated dramatically and the shortfall has soared to 7,000 megawatts. In 2010, power outages did take place and could last for up to four hours at a time – but they were monthly occurrences with advanced notice, enabling people to plan their lives around them. “Now, small business owners report a 50 percent reduction in revenue over the past two years,” the report said. The country’s power crisis might have reached the tipping point, but the factors behind it have been brewing for the past two decades. One of the key reasons is unpaid electricity bills: provincial and federal governments often fail to pay their dues despite being the biggest consumers. “Then there is the matter of electricity theft, in which some residential and commercial consumers bribe staff at the power companies in order to receive an unlimited supply. This, in turn, affects the supply to other households and businesses that must effectively pay the bill for those who do not,” Al Jazeera said.
Nazeer Ahmad, who runs a computer and mobile sales and service shop, said told Al Jazeera he had to rely on an Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) unit to power the bulbs and fans in his shop.
But that only lasts for a maximum of 90 minutes, after which the batteries must be recharged – for which electricity is required.
“Although a UPS is cheaper than a generator, with a one-off purchase cost of around $300, there are associated maintenance costs and those have been increasing. Batteries must be changed every 18 months. A few months ago each battery cost around $100, and now that has risen to $125,” added the report. Many businesses are responding to the power crisis by turning to alternative energy sources.
Mahmood Ahmad of Grease Pakistan, one of Pakistan’s main suppliers of generators, told Al Jazeera the demand for generators running on diesel, petrol and gas had increased in recent years. “Over the last couple of years, it isn’t that we have started to sell or rent out more generators,” he explains, “but we have definitely seen the capacity [of the generators demanded] being doubled. So if 500 generators of one kilowatt were being used, now that requirement has jumped to 500 generators of two kilowatts.” The price of a generator starts from $135 and the cost of high-end models can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars. And those prices are rising. “This year, we have seen an increase in prices,” Ahmad says. “We import these generators, so the prices are mainly affected by the fact that the rupee has been losing its value against the dollar. Going by the demand and supply rule, now that the demand is higher the prices should have gone down.