I know onething, about KB Dam, if Musharaf was unable to make it with so much power in most of the provinces, then I dont think any one else in this govt can do it as well. KB dam issue surely shows how dreadful our politicians and stupid public is.
About building other dams, then really if we would have followed up the plans since 1970's to make one Dam every 15 years, then we would not have been in this problem. I was reading an article lately which said that a scientist proposed a plan to make 1 Nuclear power station per year beginning 1980 for at least 20 years so that Pakistan will have enough energy for the future. But as usual this proposal was sidelined as well.
The latest pact with Chinese N. Plants will also take place from at least 7-10 years and they will produce like 650 MW of energy, I am sure that smaller cities like Multan and Hyderabad would be consuming alone this much energy after few years. So in all we need a big re-vamp to the situation.
Interesting!
Yes I agree with your sentiments about our politicians.
However politicians are not the only ones to blame. We as a nation should look at our ownselves to find the real answers.
There are two important aspects to this whole Bijli ki kami story.
- Money i.e. $$ and lots of it that is needed to build and run the darn things.
- Our views towards international rules.
1. Money or Dollars needed to build power plants
1A-Should we earn the dollars or take a loan?
We do not have money to build any large infrastructure project. Why? As a nation, we do not provide enough services to international community to earn the money. We are net "consumers" of services.
1B. Taking a loan to build the power plants
So far our options have been to invite people build the plant and then charge a predetermined $$ per unit to recover their cost. This model works only when we have consistent income. The answer then again goes back to 1C.
1C. How do we earn bunch of dollars
Well there are few ways to earn bunch of dollars.
- I - Sell goods and services to the West (net exports) II - Sell goods and services to the Western tourists (local earning)*
Look at Chinese. They work day and night working for Walmart and in return get bunch of dollars. Look at Indians, they work day and night providing call centers, check cashing, and credit card servicing to America, and in return get bunch of dollars. What do we do? We in Pakistan however yell at America day and night. so there are no "bunch of dollars" from net exports.
Same way we are extremely strict and tribal with our tourists. In tourism we behave like Saudi biduins. Unfortunately we do not have oil wealth to compensate for our anti-tourist biduin habits.
So there are no "bunch of dollars" from local earnings either.
Wish we were like Turks and Dubains who have maintained their religion and still be "extremely tourist friendly".
*2. Our views towards international rules. *
We don't care about international treaties. Nawaz Sharif invited S. Korean companies to build motoways. Guess what! the very next PPP government broke the agreements and kicked them out. That didn't set a good precedence for future.
As a nation we don't want to sign NPT so there is no nuclear power plant from the West. While Chinese will take 7-10 years to build a single 650 MW peak plant. France and USA can build 1100 MW plant in less than 3 years and there is no limit as to how many plants they can build.
Thus with our tribal and biduin behavior we ourselves have put into a no-win situation. And only we can get out of this by changing our anarchist views.