How the PML-N government has performed till now
Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Asif must be given the credit for his honesty in accepting at a press conference that power deficit had increased to 7,000 MW and the shortfall was mainly attributable to the fact that the government did not pay required attention to upgrading the below 220KV transmission system which was not good enough to carry the load of over 15,000 MW. He admitted that the government’s strategy was faulty as it mainly focused on supply side and failed to adopt an integrated strategy with equal emphasis on supply, demand and improvement in the transmission system.
A party which won the elections by castigating the PPP regime for its failure to fix the power outages and promising to end the ordeal of the people within 3-6 months (claims repeatedly made by Shahbaz Sharif), is now telling the same people, after more than a year in power, that it had not done its home work properly in understanding the nature and magnitude of the problem and it needed rains to ease the situation. This is absolutely mind-boggling. In the words of Parveen Shakir: “Baat to such hey magar baat hai ruswai ki”.
There is also a Punjabi proverb the English rendering of which is ‘the knots that you tie with your hands have to be untangled with your teeth’. That is exactly the situation in which the PML-N finds itself in regards to power shortage. The power crisis was so grave that those who understood its nature knew that it could not be fixed within a short span of time and it at least needed 5-8 years to fix it. I am sure the PML-N stalwarts also knew it but there aim probably was only to win the elections by making people believe that their miseries would end as soon as the PML-N was voted into power. The hype created on the issue by the party during the election campaign, the experts believe, has come back to haunt it and might even act as a make and break factor for it. They believe the PML-N would have won the elections even without making the power outages as a rallying point. The PPP, except for focusing its attention on completion of its mandated tenure, did nothing to deserve the franchise of the people and the PML-N was the best available alternative.
Having said that, I honestly feel that after coming into power the PML-N has made earnest efforts to tackle the formidable challenges faced by the country. When Nawaz Sharif was sworn as prime minister for the third time, the country faced existentialist threat from the phenomenon of terrorism, the economy was in complete mess, the country was in the grip of worst ever energy crisis and Karachi, the financial hub of Pakistan, was at the mercy of different mafias who fought turf wars with each other, sectarian and targeted killings were order of the day, extortionists were having a hay day and TTP had succeeded in building considerable presence in the city. Balochistan was seething with insurgency.
It was not an enviable situation. But looking back at one year the party has been in power, one cannot deny the fact that the Nawaz government has achieved considerable success in some areas and in regards to other challenges, healthy and trend setting initiatives have been put in place. It is presently working on 26 power generating projects, including 10 coal-based units with cumulative power production capacity of 6,600 MW at Gaddani, another 10 in Thar, two at Port Qasim and four plants at different locations in Punjab. Ground-breaking ceremony of a nuclear power plant with a capacity of 2,200 MW has already been performed which will start producing electricity by 2017. With the completion of these projects and those already in the pipeline like Neelum-Jhelum next year, the energy shortages would hopefully be eliminated within the next four-five years. The people not only need to understand that but also bear with it. There are no quick-fix solutions available to deal with the situation.
The economic policies pursued by the government have also produced positive results and there are visible signs of a turnaround which has been endorsed by the IMF, the World Bank, the Gallop Poll and Moody’s who of late have also changed Pakistan’s rating outlook to ‘stable’. To deal with terrorism, the government for the first time has come up with a formal National Internal Security Policy and as one of the options provided by it, has finally launched a decisive military campaign against TTP in North Waziristan, with very encouraging results so far. The government and military leadership are determined to take it to its logical end.
The government in consultation with the Sindh government and all other stakeholders initiated a targeted operation in Karachi in September 2013 which is progressing well although the situation still remains volatile. Hundreds of criminals, target killers, extortionists and terrorists have been apprehended or killed in encounters with the law enforcing agencies. To be fair to the government, the obtaining situation in Karachi is a cumulative result of the criminal neglect on the part of successive governments to check the demon on the prowl and in certain cases their complicity in promoting violence and lawlessness to achieve their narrow political interests. This mess will take a long time to be cleared up. It is a situation of wheels within wheels. Nevertheless there is no denying the fact that the present government has exhibited a strong commitment and determination, divorced from political expediencies, to take the operation to its logical end, unlike the previous governments. Apart from using the state muscle to take out the criminals, it is also supplementing the developmental efforts of the Sindh government. During his recent visit to Karachi to assess the situation, the prime minister announced Green Bus Line Service for Karachi costing Rs15 billion which would be entirely borne by the federal government. He also made the commitment to bear half of the cost of Rs26 billion Greater Water Supply Scheme.
In Balochistan also the militants and insurgents are being pursued and several operations have been successfully conducted against their hideouts and training facilities in the interior of the province, which has effectively reduced the incidence of their terrorist acts. All the foregoing efforts more than compensate for the rhetoric during the election campaign and if allowed to create their impact uninterrupted, they are likely to usher in an era of peace and progress.