While the new government that comes to power in Islamabad will have its plate full of problems that the people of Pakistan are facing currently but the most important problem that it can certainly alleviate and give much needed relief to the people is to tackle the shortage of power generation on war footing.

The previous government of the PML-Q says that the economy during their tenure grew so fast that it greatly exceeded their projected estimates of the power that the country would need over the years and since there was a surplus of power when they started off they did noting to create additional capacity for power generation.

However the case may be, the ground reality is that the country is facing acute shortage of power as a consequence of which the power generation companies are resorting to up to 18 hours of load-shedding in a day.

This situation is playing havoc with the people of Pakistan and they want relief as soon as possible but the earliest estimates that are being given out by officials seem to tell us that we the common folk face four years of extended load shedding euphemistically called load management by the officials.

With summer season being around the corner, one can be sure that the load shedding will reach its peak or in other words will become unbearable.

It will be especially hurtful for the industries and trading sector that in turn will reduce our exports and unnecessarily slow down our economy.

A country that is already burdened with high trade gaps and unemployment, can not maintain its economic growth which again is disastrous for the economy. Also, the power crunch is likely to adversely affect the investment climate and we may not be able to maintain our FDI leave alone increase it.

That is not a pretty prospect for any government right from the beginning. Therefore, it is hoped that the new government, instead of losing time in red-tape etc, gets down to the nitty- gritty right away and finds some solution to the power shortage problem.

Some of the immediate solutions are arranging for the already functioning IPPs to function at full capacity and to arrange immediate power generation facilities. For this purpose barge mounted generators can be hired immediately near the shores and inland, truck mounted generators can be purchased or hired!

Providing immediate relief from power shortage may be a costly affair, but under the circumstances it cannot be helped but to go for it. However, the cost burden may be lessened by restructuring the power tariff where the affluent are made to pay a higher price than the less fortunate consumers.

But of course, the long term solution is to generate hydro-power without losing much time.

One can only hope that the new government gets down to business immediately instead of losing time in political rhetoric.

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Tags: economy, Government, Musharraf, PML (Q), Power crisis