New Delhi: Cash-strapped Pakistan is now battling an acute power crisis, with houses across many provinces facing outages for multiple hours. People are being forced to live without electricity for hours even as the searing heat is adding to the woes.
And, if reports are to believed that the situation is only going to worsen in coming days as the cash-strapped country has no financial wherewithal to buy fuel be it coal or natural gas from overseas markets. Ukraine-Russia war has further led to skyrocketing of fuel prices, making it difficult for Pakistan to buy fuel that could help its power plants operate with efficiency.
Pakistan faces humongous challenge to make its economy survive amid global challenges. As the prices of coal & natural have surged to record high, it is finding hard to buy fuel from the overseas markets.
‘Pakistan’s power plants are shut due to lack of petrol & fuel supply’, It was revealed by none other than Miftah Ismail, Pakistan Finance Minister who tweeted about such shortfall. A large number of plants are shut due to technical faults. Altogether, this makes for loss of 7,000 Megawatt energy in the country.
Pakistan has a power generation capacity of about 35,000 Megawatt of energy and with more than 7,000 MW going out of service, the situation is too acute to handle for the current dispensation.
This is the first grave challenge for new Pakistan PM Shahbaz Sharif, who is yet to appoint an Energy Minister, after the exit of Imran Khan government. The South Asian nation, besides having a tottering economy, has been creaking under the weight of rising global fuel prices. How, it manages to tide over the crisis, only time will tell. But, it’s not going to get over anytime soon.
“Pakistan’s situation will not change in the near term since global dynamics are still the same,” said Samiullah Tariq, head of research at Pakistan Kuwait Investment Co.
