| 6, April 2005 | Wednesday | 26 Safar 1426 |
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Question of security
Summer thoughts
WITH oil prices hitting an all-time high of $58.18 per barrel in the international market this week, the government is coming under pressure not to raise domestic oil prices as it has done frequently in the past few months. What make this week’s hike more worrisome are predictions that by 2010, the country would be facing an acute energy shortage if steps are not taken now to create new alternatives to fuel supply. On the one hand, there is a consistent rise in the price of oil in the world market and, on the other, supplies of natural gas, the fuel of choice in Pakistan because it is both indigenous and cheaper, are running out. This puts the government in a predicament and calls for a multi-pronged strategy for energy saving. More incentives need to be provided to oil and gas prospecting companies to step up work towards finding new oil and gas reserves in the country. With 85 per cent of the country’s oil consumption being met by imports, the policy of relying more on indigenous fuel resources will help bring down the fuel import bill from its present level of about three billion dollars annually.
In oil imports, the second largest chunk consists of diesel. This fuel is used mainly by the transport industry. The government is now working on a plan to make public transport to switch to compressed natural gas (CNG) in place of diesel. So far, the effort has had a lot of success in encouraging the conversion of private vehicles to CNG. This can be gauged from the fact that fuel consumption has dropped from 3.5 million tons in fiscal 2001-02 to 1.65 million tons in fiscal 2002-03. A word of caution needs, however, to be sounded here. We cannot rely entirely on local sources for our gas needs of the future. A decision has to be taken about the proposed gas pipeline that will pump in gas from Iran and onwards to India. Two other gas pipelines — one from Turkmenistan and the other from Qatar — also call for attention. If none of the three materialize, the government will need to take a decision to create a terminal that facilitates the import of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Such a facility would ensure that by 2010 we have an adequate arrangement for fuel supply.
The third area, and in this work can start immediately, is raising public awareness of the importance and urgency of economy in the use of power. Conservation should be a key message that the government needs to emphasize. Awareness campaigns must be launched to ensure that power is not wasted, and violators, like marriage halls and service stations, where excessive illumination is the norm, should be taken to task to set an example for others. In the same manner, luxury cars that consume high amounts of fuel should be discouraged and more emphasis could be placed on improving the state of public transport so that people use it in larger numbers instead of driving their own cars. Offices can also set up car pools to reduce the need for private cars to travel between office and home. These are some areas where the government needs to take the initiative. This will help raise awareness among the people about the critical situation we are now facing and make them appreciate how their cooperation will help the country achieve its long-term goals successfully.
THE countdown is almost over: tomorrow the historic Kashmir bus service linking Muzaffarabad and Srinagar will begin with a bus each leaving either side of the Line of Control. The buses will be carrying not only members of divided families, who have waited for decades to meet their loved ones, but also the hopes and aspirations of hundreds of millions of Pakistanis and Indians who wish for a lasting peace between the two countries. In that context, it would be an understatement to say that a great deal depends on the success of the bus service, the initiation of which is being seen as a major breakthrough in the on-going process of normalization between Pakistan and India. The last time a bus ferried passengers on the 170-km long road between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad was 57 years ago.
There was no security concern then, but now it is different. In fact, after an ultimatum by four militant organizations to passengers embarking in Srinagar that the bus would be turned into a “coffin”, the need to have very strong security will be paramount. The militant outfits also seemed to have in their possession a list of the passengers and their particulars. This prompted the Indian authorities to move the passengers to a safe location in Srinagar. In addition, the bus service will be provided the same security as given to convoys transporting Indian security forces. On Tuesday, the Indian authorities also recovered around 20 kilograms of explosives from a roadside in Baramulla district, which is on the bus’s route. The start of the service is quite symbolic in itself because it shows that decades-old psychological barriers are perhaps finally being overcome and that Kashmiris are being accorded the importance they deserve. Given that so much rests on this bus link, and that those who oppose the peace process for their own narrow ends have made it known that they intend to use violence to stop it from going ahead, both countries will have to use whatever means are at their disposal to shield it from any possible attack.
WINTER’S over in many parts of the country; frequent rains kept it going for a while longer than usual in the Punjab plains, but temperatures in most areas are now getting into the high 30s. Spring, as always, was short-lived. The Queen of the Night that perfumed the evening air in Karachi has stopped blooming. Soon everywhere except the hills there will be the clouds of dust that swirl on the roads without any apparent reason. There is always a certain forlorn, desolate look to summer. Is it only one’s imagination or is the feeling reflected in the national mood? There is certainly a sense of being helpless against the tide of events as much as against the weather’s onslaught. We seem listlessly to drift from episode to episode. A sectarian killing, an attack on an athletics event, simmering discontent in Balochistan now beginning to bake in the sun, deadlock on the political front, turning protests and simple things such as the return of a political leader from abroad into big tamashas.
What are we headed for? If oil prices go up any more, the burden on the common citizen will become back-breaking. There may be genuine impediments in tackling some of these issues, but what is galling is the lack of concern and care among the policy-makers. Is anyone seriously worried in Islamabad about the crushing weight of problems faced by citizens in their daily life — transport, health, schooling? We can’t manage the administration of the districts we already have and yet we create more districts, and more postings for bureaucrats. We refuse to acknowledge that the new local government system will run itself into the ground if we don’t sit down and seriously try to overcome the shortcomings that have been noticed in its working. It is this inability to chart out a proper direction that makes us flounder time and again. If it is going to be another long, hot summer, it won’t be the first. But perhaps we will have a good monsoon.