Power, prayers and rain

This business involves a lot of politics

What makes 16 hours without electricity in a day even more disturbing? Your country’s power minister having 23 per cent stakes in a privately owned power company, which is a major recipient of the government funds to clear the circular debt. If that pushed the government to audit Rs410 billion doled out to the power generation companies is obviously out of question, but the reason someone felt the need to look through the quick “disappearance” of this not-so-small amount means quite something.

Power generation is all about figures: the number of Megawatts produced and expected shortfall; difference between demand and supply; units distributed and bills recovered, and so on. The complexity of the mechanism involved makes this data so valuable that even the government (the political bosses) have little clue of what’s happening. This secrecy and control over crucial information has led many to allege that even the NTDC has been lying about the figures. Even LESCO — responsible for distributing and billing electricity in Lahore region — is allegedly manipulating figures with its top official being recently arrested for selling electricity “under the table” to the industrial units.

The involvement of top officials in such ‘trade’ in office leaves a big question mark on the integrity and will of those at the helm of affairs.

Power generation is all about figures: the number of Megawatts produced and expected shortfall; difference between demand and supply; units distributed and bills recovered, and so on.

“Nowhere in the universities are we taught how to manage load-shedding, we are only trained in producing and distributing electricity at engineering schools. It is here at WAPDA that we get hands-on experience of this art,” a senior LESCO official told this publication. That official also claims 99 per cent recovery for this financial year, a figure he proudly claims even many banks can hardly achieve. Interestingly, LESCO received 160 billion more electricity units compared to the previous year from the central pool, yet still images of burning tyres, blocked roads and angry protestors across the length and breadth of the region keep the media abuzz. The official answer is obviously a ‘tremendous’ increase in demand, the dichotomy, nonetheless, do point to some missing dots.

A country where even the biggest of tragedies fail to bring people out of their homes, power outages have done the miracle and quite consistently. The “power-less” protests, as dubbed by a section of the press, actually shaped the political discourse for the last general elections and still continue to do so.

“This [power generation business] involves a lot of politics. Distribution and load shedding schedule for different regions have political repercussions. The PPP coming down from 50 NA seats from Punjab in the last term to just a single one this time speaks for itself,” the LESCO top official said.

That God exists, and listens to the prayers, is not contested by believers. The power minister urging people to pray for rain to get electricity however didn’t sit well with a lot of them. After all, they knew, he didn’t have to pray to get those Rs7 billion for the power company he partially owned.