PM’s Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz has said that the new government included the completion of the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project among its priorities. 
 

He said this at a joint press conference with visiting German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwalle on Saturday. 
 

This might be good news for Pakistani citizens, who look to the availability of Iranian gas to operate thermal power generation plants that might alleviate the present crisis. 
 

However, it will further disturb the USA, whose chargé d’affaires in Islamabad has already been summoned over Friday’s drone attack. While Iran may well be under U.S. sanctions.

 

However, at the same time, Mian Muhammad Mansha, addressing a gathering of businessmen in Karachi, said that a one-time charge would be made from consumers, to eliminate the circular debt. This would mean another burden on the consumer, and does not mesh with the statement by Federal Water and Power Minister Kh Asif, who said, while talking to the press on Saturday, that no deadlines could be set on loadshedding. The nation has long been told the circular debt problem has caused the loadshedding which is afflicting the whole nation, not just its consumers, but is also caused jobs to be destroyed, as closed factories fail to fill export orders.

 

The government is showing great concern about loadshedding, but has made no moves on an obvious solution, that of building hydel dams, which would provide cheap electricity, and in many cases also provide irrigation water. Perhaps the best example, certainly the most comprehensively studied, is that of the Kalabagh Dam, which has been stymied by vested interests raising unfounded slogans. Pakistan has been blessed with a particularly rich hydel potential, and not to exploit it is negligent, given the difference in price between hydel and thermal generation.
 

While the solution to the current crisis should leave Pakistan with more capacity than demand, the growth of population, and of the economy, would mean that any excess would be soon re-absorbed. It must not be forgotten that the current crisis arose after the surmounting of the loadshedding of the 1990s. Therefore, the solution lies in planning for future needs, not merely meeting current demand. That the government realises this involves the Iranian gas pipeline is a step in the right direction.

 

 

(Source: nation.com.pk)

Next >