Mismanaged Pakistan

Wheat is nowhere to be found in our country though the crop was good, reason mismanged policy and greed of people stacking to sell it for higher profits. Other edibles and daily use item proces are sky rocketing, reason hoarding by cartels though there are enough stocks available. One of the solutions is good governance. Yeah I heard the slogan by one of Musharraf cronies a few years back if this is good governance I donot want to find out what his bad would be like.
The anology I am drawing from all this is that international proces of fuel and food are going up and have an impact, but mismangement is the reason of our plight. Sometime back OGRA set to make a transparent policy, but what the multinational companies are doing is irrational. Everyone knows how many litres are in a barrel and what is ex-pakistan price, add a sensible amount of profit and sell it to the people. But that would not let the oil companies make a windfall profit. In the wake of this use of CNG is allowed which is an alternate fuel. This has made the travelling cost of CNG fitted vehicle less than a motorcycle. My objection though I am benefitting from it personally is that this use of gas is eating up the reserves and now enough gas is not available for industrial units.
Similarly in 1998 army was inducted into WAPDA headed by a General, the main reason cited then was to weed out corruption and make the organization profitable and efficient. But after 8 years at the helm of affairs the General Sahab couldnot find enough corrupt persons and had to do with the bad eggs. On the efficiency and improvement front his record is more dismal. Spares of power houses were blocked, new transmission lines, transformers and power stations were not built. Instead being held accountable the General Sahab was given another lucrative jpb and the department was left with the ills it already had plus those accumulated by him.
The clock always keep ticking and now we find ourselves in the present times. This is the second year the peole of Pakistan are suffering because of power incessant breakdowns and loadshedding. There are complaints of inflated bills and low voltages. The industrial production and commercial activities are slowing down, their full impact would be coming later in the year. The controversy presently raging is that it is the due to mismanagement of the previous governement which is partly true. But lets leave the blame game to the polotocoans, lets see if the problem is as big as it is made. My challenge to all involved is that it is not.
Electricity is produced from hydel, gas, oil and nuclear resources, its time to use all of them in the best possible way, which is not being done. The second side of the coin is managing load and that too is not handles in a judicious manner. Just look at the recent news: production of hydel power stations lower than what they could have been, oil stocks at more than ten stations low or already depleted, billions of rupees payable to power companies which whenever would be paid (as GOP has guaranteed that) would be paid with interest. As so much fuel is required now, even if the financial woes are removed today even then such supplies cannot be arranged and stocked in enough quantities for the next few months.
Fuel Oil is not the only problem, gas supplies are disrupted on a regular basis, enough supplies are not given to power stations although they are most effecient in converting this fossil fuel, the stoves and oven mostly in the country have a effeciency rate of less than 20%. No design of stove or water heater has been formulated which would atleast do saving in the future.
The transmission lines and transformers are another weak link in the system. Its easy to say 5000~6000 MW generation would be added soon, I have my reservations on that too but lets say if it happens even then how would that be despatched. Where are the augumentation and extension projects. This is expected from a department that is already incurring loss of billions every month. Ironically it is supposed to give subsidy to many sectors, governement and others owe it billions, the present rate of sale is lower than production. Now is there is any other more classical example of mismanagement.
People of Pakistan toiled and made progress in their life, others had conatcts and easy way round, then credit was introduced and it was easy to buy new cars and build palace like houses. China provided with ineffecient electrical products and everyone got the luxury of buying an air conditioner or two. As in every other aspect there are not clear figures of how many were instaled in the past three years and how much is their load but it is too large. All this was done without santioning of extnsion of load. The grid system remains overloaded all the time and even before the present load shedding hit the cities, it was prevalent in small towns and villages. Now I dont wish to remove this luxury from our household or commercial buildings. But can an architect tell me why all glass buildings are being designed even where double panes are not provided other than it is the cheapest way to construct by putting floor over columns and enveloping it from glass. Now with this load shedding and flaw of not have any ventilation or shaed these building let you experience what hell might be like. There is no data on these building telling how much heat loss is there and if plans of future building are improved how much would be saved in the future.
There are many other things that need to be done, and more could be find on the internet, and professional help could be sought. But the solution to power crisis also needs a quick remedy which can be demand side management. The main goals of that should be to provide uninterrupted power to all but if that is not possible, industrial production should suffer least, similarly commercial activity needs to go on. GOP recently announced some measure for managing load like shifiting of Pakistan standard time, closing of commercial centers by nine pm. These are old ideas practiced before but by no means they are obselete. Many countries in the orld ar reaping the benefits of such steps but the success of the plan is in its implementation.
I have a lot more to say and suggest but I will await response from others and also monitor the progress of these steps.