Businessmen in a meeting at Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) welcomed the government’s 10-year energy roadmap, unveiled by the Prime Minister of Pakistan Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani while inaugurating 225-MW Orient power plant at Balloki recently.

They termed it a positive initiative, which has given them a ray of hope for a better energy future as it envisages doubling the country’s power generation capacity with a minimum addition of 20,000 MW by the year 2020.

They said that the rising energy crisis has badly affected almost all sectors of the economy. Therefore, top most priority should be given to improving this area and to save the economy from further damage.

Chairing the meeting, Mr.Zahid Maqbool, President, ICCI said that the unveiled energy roadmap is an ambitious plan and government should ensure high-level of implementation capacity & the required funding to turn it into a reality.

He said on assuming power, the present government had shown great resolve to take urgent measures to overcome energy crisis. However, it has so far added only 1,708-MW to the national grid, which is far short of the desired level.

Mr.Zahid Maqbool said that along with producing more power, government should take measures to secure maximum efficiency in generation, transmission and distribution systems as almost 35-40 percent power is lost on account of inefficiency and line losses.

He said government should divert street lights, water heating and irrigation pumps to solar energy and introduce energy savers to save more energy for industrial and manufacturing sectors.

Businessmen said that WAPDA had also announced a "Vision 2025" program, with major focus on water and hydropower projects. However, the program is marked with lack of implementation, as almost all schemes of the program scheduled for completion by now are still way behind schedule.

They said that even the so-called "fast-track" projects have not fared any better. They urged the government to ensure that the new energy roadmap doesn’t meet the same fate.

Mr.Zahid Maqbool said that the energy roadmap should focus on exploiting cheap energy sources like hydro, coal, wind, solar and biomass. He said that country’s focus on thermal power has not only raised the per-unit cost of production, it has also eroded the competitiveness of our exports, forcing some industrialists to relocate to other countries in search of cheap labor and energy cost.

He was of the view that the affordable energy supply in the country will not only pull back the migrant industrialists, it will attract more investment in the country.