LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Mian Nawaz Sharif on Saturday said his party has a clear energy vision to ensure that gas and electricity can be supplied to all urban and rural consumers continuously at an affordable price. "We have made planning to also ensure that energy resources are allocated through regulated market forces and not for personal financial gains of the powerful. Large-scale investment in the energy sector can create thousands of new jobs and contribute to social, educational, economic and industrial development," Nawaz said while addressing the party workers at his Raiwind residence.
Nawaz said the multi-dimensional energy crisis, which posed manifold challenges for the government, people and industry, will require effective and sustainable solutions through short-term measures and medium-term plans which must be undertaken in a co-ordinated manner; not just plan to fill the gap of 6,000MW capacity that exists today, but plan for the increased demand that our growing population and growing economy will generate.
According to him, reliable and reasonably priced energy is vital for the economic and social development of Pakistan. The PML-N leader said they believe in rendering selfless services to the masses and after coming into power, we would devote all energies for betterment of people and uplift of the country.
It may be noted that the annual cost of load-shedding was estimated in 2010 at Rs 500 billion ($5 billion), a loss of a million jobs and at least $2.8 billion reduction in exports. Despite 65 years of independence, the nation is facing a shortage of over 6,000MW and at least 40 per cent of Pakistan's population does not have access to electricity.
Nawaz said that his party will develop alternative renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, bagasse, biogas, and biomass projects, especially for off-grid and micro-grid applications. We would also introduce Net Metering System for small electricity consumers. The PML-N believes that the situation for natural gas is even more worrisome, where only a fifth of the population has access to piped natural gas, and there are long and sustained periods in winters when gas is not available in many parts of the country. With current trends the total gas production will fall from the present level of around 4,000MMCFD to only 1,000MMCFD by the year 2024-25.
This will require import to cover 80-85 per cent of the gas required in the country. Urgent steps are therefore needed to develop new gas fields and import infrastructure. The PML-N in its Election Manifesto 2013 has identified the following five glaring failures of the PPP government:
a) The PPP led coalition has almost doubled electricity prices in the past four years to eliminate subsidies but because of poor governance and inability to improve the efficiency of the energy sector, the losses have actually increased and the energy crisis has become more serious. Production, transmission and distribution losses have increased and the distribution companies have been unable to recover their full dues (arrears estimated at Rs 499 billion in 2012) or reduce theft of electricity. This has led to a chronic so called 'circular debt problem' of Rs 500 billion in 2012.
b) The PPP government has not been able to modernise existing thermal units to improve their generating capacity which was possible at relatively low cost. Instead, it opted for several high cost rental power projects to add very expensive electricity to the system.
c) There has been virtually no progress in attracting investment in the energy sector, especially in hydel or coal based projects to correct the fuel mix.
d) For the first time, Pakistan has experienced the menace of gas load shedding. Yet the government has neither increased the speed of gas exploration nor made concrete efforts to import gas.
e) Overall lack of competence and the political will to address the sufferings of people of Pakistan as reflected in political appointments instead of merit-based selections in Public Sector Enterprises and the inability to reduce losses and recover arrears.
The PML-N manifesto also envisages to tackle circular debt and system losses on priority in order to end load shedding in minimum time and in 5 years there will be a market for wholesale trade of electricity and most importantly consumers, using the distribution network of the local Discos and the transmission network of the national grid will be able to buy electricity from their preferred producer. And once there is enough competition in the market, neither government guarantees nor government subsidies will be required and prices will start to go down as they have in the mobile telephone market.