How serious 'Shaukat Aziz and company' were in fulfilling Musharraf's agenda to address power crisis by producing cheaper electricity could be well judged from the fact that the previous government did not spend even a single penny allocated during the last two budgets for construction of new water reserviours.
Sources told Business Recorder on Sunday that the entire budgetary allocation of Rs 10 billion for the new water reservoirs in 2006-07 had lapsed due to non-utilisation. Again, in 2007-08, budgetary allocation of Rs 2.5 billion for power production-related projects remained unutilised.
It clearly indicates how serious the Shaukat Aziz government was to resolve an issue which was not only impeding the national progress but was also making the people's lives miserable.
Soomro's caretaker government cut Rs 2.5 billion of water related projects for subsidies required for oil, wheat and fertiliser import. After successful coup against Nawaz in 1999, Musharraf unfolded a 7-point agenda in a late night address to the nation. The construction of new dams for meeting water and power demand was fourth item of the agenda. He held dozens, if not hundreds, of meetings with the officials of the Ministry of Water and Power, PPIB and other concerned departments at Presidency during his 9-year rule.
Each time he got a nod from the tricky bureaucrats that they were very much on the job, which actually they never did any thing about. Interestingly, President Musharraf himself seemed convinced after each meeting on water and power related projects. He could not get even the slightest hint that with each passing day Pakistan's energy crisis was turning bad to worse and the bureaucrats were not giving him a true picture.
There seems no visible solution to the crisis in the near future. Loadshedding is now the order of the day. Industry, business, every activity that's needed for progress of a country has come to a halt. Can one think of a bright future when loadshedding duration covers half of the day and night.
Everybody, except the President, Prime Minister and perhaps a few lucky ones who live in diplomatic enclave and MNAs hostels in Islamabad, are facing the worst kind of loadshedding. In practical terms, Pakistan today stands hostage to power crisis and its worst victims are those who by no means could be held responsible of it.