Due to bad planning, energy crises has put a negative impact on economic growth of the country, as electricity consumption has increased over the years, but successive governments could not develop a long term strategy to overcome the energy crises permanently, though Pakistan possesses huge potential and opportunities to meet its rising energy demands, stated Mahfooz Elahi, President of Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry, commenting on arrangement of Rental Power Plant by the Government for the supply of 232 MW of electricity.

The supply of electricity from the Rental power plant would meet the electricity needs on makeshift basis but it was not the long terms solution of growing demands of electricity in the country, thus government along with building dams, should see other options to generate electricity.

He said that Pakistan has still not been able to switch over for generation of electricity from coal, an indigenous source of energy that is estimated to be the third largest in the world with a reserve of 33.0 trillion tons. The countries like China and India are mostly fulfilling its energy needs from coal, but unfortunately, Pakistan could not exploit that huge potential, which was an alternate solution of electricity generation along with other options, Mahfooz Elahi stated.

President said that Pakistan is rich in hydro resources. According to an estimate the country has enough resources to generate approximately 40000 MW of hydro-electricity. However, presently it only generates 8000 MW of electricity against an installed capacity of 11327 MW. In addition the country can generate electricity with the help of wind and solar energy which has not yet been exploited to meet the energy deficit. He said that Nuclear energy is yet another source of energy and at present produces only 472 MW.

President ICCI said that electricity produced from the Rental Power Plants would be expensive that will further increase cost of doing business. He said that government has also decided to increase power tariff by 2.2 percent each month to achieve its financial targets by end of June 2011, which will create a new wave of increase in inflation that has already gone up more than 20%.

Mahfooz Elahi stressed on the need to find long terms solutions for the generation of electricity instead of looking temporary and short term solutions. He said that further delay in utilizing the existing resources, would increase more difficulties for Pakistan in terms of shortage of electricity and increase in production cost.