Encouraging signs

Are consumers no longer suffering power cuts as claimed by a Pepco official? No. But the severe crisis in April has eased, partly because of the measures announced at the energy conference held in Islamabad last month and partly because of more tolerable weather in some parts of the country and more water becoming available for hydel power generation.
It is relatively clear that a large portion of the blame for the acute crisis last month can be laid at the door of the circular debt issue. During peak summer there is certainly an issue of power generation capacity, but that was not the case last month. Unfortunately, dealing with the problem of circular debt appears to have been put off, perhaps with an eye towards containing the fiscal deficit for the financial year ending in June. The government has been kept on a tight leash by the IMF, and adding to borrowings can compound the crisis. The problem for consumers, though, is that delaying the resolution of the circular debt issue may aggravate the situation in the months ahead, leading to a double whammy of sorts as the gap between supply and demand will keep growing in the summer months.
Nevertheless, it is encouraging that at long last the national and provincial leadership appears to have awakened to the need to deal with the power crisis. A second energy conference has been convened by the prime minister and once again all the provincial chief ministers have been invited. The measures taken at the last round of meetings have somewhat eased the consumers’ torment in many places. Yes, there have been problems, as evidenced by the flouting in Karachi of the ban on supplying CNG to motor vehicles one day a week. Punjab is feeling aggrieved that the other provinces have not acted with as much alacrity to implement the energy-saving measures. However, it is encouraging that there appears to be at least some commitment by all sides to continue with a national response to the energy crisis as opposed to Islamabad issuing orders that the provinces ignore.