We are the real ‘God gifted’ nation but have unfortunately failed to drag ourselves into the category of the developed ones. It is us, who have 850 trillion cubic feet of coal in Sindh. It is worth 25 trillion US dollars, but only if exploited. The question, which is really difficult to answer, is “why aren’t we exploiting our reserves?”
I imagine myself sitting out the earth on at a different planet. The world would seem to be like a giant spherical country, and Pakistan one of its towns. The first idea that would blink into my mind would be that the residents of the town are burying themselves alive.
Well, in my opinion there is a big YES to the fact that we are burying ourselves alive. We have untouched oil and gas reserves under the barren mountains of Balochistan and the sands of Sindh – we have coal, estimated at 175 billion tons. If the natural gas we found in Sui could have been used for power generation projects, there would have been no such phenomenon of ‘loadshedding’, and we would have been immensely developed. But unfortunately due to lack of good plans and ideas, it could only be reserved for domestic use, CNGs and to be honest millions of pounds got wasted due to leakage in pipelines spread over hundreds of miles.
The politicians have always proved to be heroes, but mostly only in the arenas of debates and controversies. The entire country is in a state of commotion and outrage but they are quite insensitive to the sufferings of the people. Due to a wide gap between the generation and the consumption, the industry is most affected and is at a standstill. The educational institutions, the hospitals, the households across the state are undergoing indescribable difficulties. I may say that the population is turning into psychological patients. Only if a minor portion of the debt (62 billion dollars approximate) had been used in buying exploitation equipment, the result would have been great. “Where there is a will, there is a way”. Only if the government had looked forward to this perception, new dams could have been built and we would have been easily out of this disastrous situation.
People mostly talk about the intensity of energy crisis but never give solutions to the problem. I would like to go towards the solutions, starting with conservation of energy. Keeping in mind, the rising population, and requirement of energy it is best to think about saving energy. Some minor steps can be taken to save energy, varying from unplugging unused appliances, saving daylight, turning off lights while leaving the room, and using light dimmers, to time management by the government. This might seem trivial but it can bring us out of this predicament.
Apart from conservation of energy, hydroelectricity, the solar, wind and geothermal and thermal power are the best alternatives to overcome the deepening energy crisis in Pakistan. I would suggest geothermal power, as there is a great capacity of generating 100,000 megawatts of electricity through this technology. Solar and hydel power is also the cheapest source of energy. Solar energy is the best and suitable form for Pakistan as the country has a potential of generating 29,000 MW electricity from the sun. The options to make energy are always open and could go on and on, but it is the sincerity of the government with the people to make policies for their good, that really matters.
The basic reason of removing the pen’s cap is to tell that we are a resource rich state – it is a matter of exploiting them to make the country prosperous. And it is only possible if we think wisely.
