The 168 million strong Pakistan is facing a serious shortage of electricity. To worsen the crisis, the external factors like global hike in petroleum prices have massively jacked up food inflation, afflicting nearly 37 million citizens living below the poverty line. But the government seems to be clueless about how to deal with this monstrous problem that threatens its economic viability.
The newly-elected prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has made announcements about energy conversation, but the utterings have not been beyond distributing millions of energy savers bulb.Â
The policy makers seems to be unaware of the dangers ahead, otherwise a massive programme had been launched to save and efficiently use our meager energy base.Â
The electricity shortage is being met through daily four to eight hours black outs, while no one has thought to cut extravagant lighting at markets, streets, private and government buildings.
Daylight saving was experimented some years ago and discarded abruptly without learning about its usefulness. There was no awareness campaign about the utility of daylight savings and majority of people even did not turned back their clocks and kept their routines according to original time.Â
The government is the biggest employer in Pakistan and owns the largest establishments where energy is used and mostly misused in a wanton manner. There is no check on how electricity, petrol and natural gas and even water are consumed, so a large portion goes waste.Â
Astonishingly even private businesses who have to pay double charges for electricity, gas and other utilities also seldom invest on adopting energy saving measures to cut the costs.Â
Saving energy is not rocket science nor does it require massive amounts of money. All one needs is to learn, educate and advocate conservation. It takes just five minutes to learn and same amount of time to persuade others.Â
What government should do?Â
- Ban pompous lightings at shopping centers, ceremonies, weddings, parties
-Switch its massive petrol guzzler transport fleet to CNG (Compress Natural Gas)
-Limit the use of air-conditioning and design energy efficient offices
-Replace conventional lights, bulbs with energy savers or LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) bulbs
-Observe daylight saving timings and five-days working week.
-Prioritise new energy generation projects
-Facilitate the use of alternate energy generation sources like solar, wind and biogas
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What citizens can do?Â
-Always switch off un-needed lights
-Use airconditioning when necessary and keep its thermostat at low level
-Install shades at windows to prevent excessive heat
-Use LEDs and energy saving bulbs
-Always switch off instead Stand-by your electrical appliances
-Send your kids to school by school buses, instead of picking and dropping them by a car or cars -Drive slow, it saves a lot of fuel
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