The businessmen in a meeting at Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry have shown great concerns over the rising power shortfall and called upon the government to take urgent measures to reduce the energy woes of trade, industry and the general public.
 

Presiding over a meeting of ICCI Sub-Committee on Energy, Zafar Bakhtawari, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry said that after the release of an amount of Rs.332 billion by the government to clear the circular debt, we were expecting sufficient relief in power supply situation, but ironically the power shortfall has risen to 5000MW which is quite disturbing. 
 

He said the energy crisis has already caused a huge loss of Rs.200 billion per annum to the textile industry and diverted export orders of worth US$ 1-billion to other destinations. The new government had given us lot of hope by according top priority to resolving energy crisis, but still there is no visible positive change in the power supply scenario.
 

However, he lauded the completion of 84-MW Pakistan’s first private hydel power project near Mangla Dam in Azad Kashmir by Laraib Energy Limited and hoped that its inauguration would pave the way for more private sector investment in power sector.
 

Zafar Bakhtawari said the Laraib Energy has to face great difficulties in completing this important project and called upon the government to fully investigate all those problems and hurdles there were created for Laraib so that it could come to know about the vested interests that tried their best to thwart private sector investment in power sector.  
 

The Committee members said according to official estimates, Pakistan has the potential to generate 100,000 MW of hydel power and termed it unfortunate that no government made any serious effort to harness this huge hydro power source which is very cheap as compared to thermal power.
 

Zafar Bakhtawari urged that government should focus on construction of small hydel power projects and provide good incentives to investors so that more private sector investors could invest in small hydel power to fully harness this natural energy source for the economic development of the country.