Long, hot summer

AS summer approaches, the country is mentally preparing itself for a long season of power outages and riots. On Tuesday, there were protests in many towns of Punjab including Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Toba Tek Singh and Sheikhupura. They were staged by industrial workers who had seen many of their colleagues dismissed from jobs because of the energy crisis. But domestic consumers are no less affected. A recent report in this paper said that, excluding those exempted from loadshedding, ‘ordinary’ Pakistanis were getting only 30 per cent of electricity against the demand of more than 14,000MW. There are areas which have electricity for 18 hours and there are those that don’t have it for the same length of time. The power ministry contests the figures, but the 50 per cent shortage that it does admit to is daunting enough and is making consumers dread the hotter months ahead when the electricity demand will be far greater.

The ministry admits there are exemptions — such as defence installations, VVIP connections and theoretically at least, hospitals. Hearing a case about the non-supply of electricity to hospitals, on Tuesday the Lahore High Court asked for the submission of an exemption schedule on April 2. The exempt list accounts for an estimated 2,000MW. Perhaps, it could do with a bit of revision for the benefit of all those who cannot help but come out shouting on the streets. Matters are painful enough at the moment, but the absence of a plan for the future is even more frustrating and leads to routine displays of violence by power rioters. The government had promised to end loadshedding within a few months after it came to power four years ago. Given the sensitivities of the PPP and the urge to provoke the government, the temptation is to equate the power promise with Gen Zia’s infamous vow of holding polls in 90 days. The power riots may have behind them some politicians wanting to embarrass the government, but it is a genuine issue on its own. Surely there is a case for linking the denial of energy to people with the government’s own grip on power.