Corruption, inefficiencies main causes of energy crisis

Experts at the roundtable conference on “Energy crisis and its Solution” urged upon the government to devise a comprehensive policy to overcome the severe energy crisis and load shedding across the country.
The roundtable meeting called by Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) President Zubair Ahmed Malik asked the government to resolve the energy issue on a war footing as it was haunting the people and industry. He said as a short-term measure the power generation companies should release funds immediately and then resolve the issue of circular debt once and for all. Malik said the recommendations and proposals for the short, medium and long-term solution of the energy crisis have been obtained by the apex trade body and would soon be submitted to the newly elected government to take an immediate and serious stance towards the issue.
He said all relevant quarters are not even definite about the power generation capacity of existing plants in the country and frequently quoting the figure at 23,000 MW which is misnomer since many plants have gone old and their generation capacity is depleting. He said the rampant corruption by the previous governments and mismanagement in the bureaucracy has resulted into the severe crisis of power shortage and the nation is facing the brunt of inefficiencies of the policy-makers.
He even blamed the private sector for doing nothing but exploiting the situation since many so-called investors have acquired hundreds or acres land for setting up wind energy turbines but have done nothing as yet. FPCCI Vice President Gulzar Firoz suggested that the government should declare working and business hours from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm in order to conserve energy. He further suggested the government to ban marriage halls from wasting electricity through unnecessary lighting and order them to close down by 10 pm. Engineer M A Jabbar said the interim government has failed to handle the situation due to which the energy crisis has worsened. He said releasing funds to IPPs is not the solution and the elected government would have to resolve this issue and come out of this vicious circle. He pointed out that many plants in public and private sector are running below capacity. He recommended withdrawing gas supply from inefficient and old fertilizers plants and this gas should be diverted to power plants to run the industry. He said the country still had another 630 mmcfd of gas to be added to the system.
Khurram Saeed suggested short, medium and long-term solution for the ongoing crisis. He said 1,000 MW electricity could be acquired from Iran immediately while India too had offered to sell electricity in a short period of time. He said the government should make arrangements for importing LNG in order to overcome the gas shortage in the country. Prof Nasim A Khan also termed the corruption and inefficiency as the major cause of energy crisis saying that during the previous regime as many as five to six ministers and secretaries had been changed and transferred and all of them came up with inefficient policies. The experts including Eng. Anwarul Haq Siddiqui, Dr Yaqub Chughtai, Prof Nasim A Khan, Eng. Kishore Kumar Sharma, Azhar Ayub, Hadi Khan Sarwar Ahmed, Siddique Shaikh, Rukhsana Jahangir, Zakria Usman and Asghar Morawala submitted their papers suggesting solutions to the energy crisis.