FOR a country that has spent several years in the grip of debilitating power crises, and for a government that took up the reins of management on the back of the promise to remedy the situation as speedily as possible, the inauguration on Tuesday of the first unit of the Quaid-i-Azam Solar Power Park in Bahawalpur must hold out some hope for the future.

What is now up and functional and providing 100MW of much-needed electricity to the national grid is just one part of what is planned as the eventual output of QASP whose generation capacity is to be increased to 1,000MW over two subsequent phases.

Take a look: PM Nawaz inaugurates country's first solar park

Once completed, the park is to constitute one of the major solar power projects in the world, and the fact that the ground has now been broken means that Pakistan has taken its first foray into a large-scale source of electricity generation that is renewable as well as sustainable. And, there is little doubt that the effort put in by the Punjab government, which spearheaded the project with Chinese assistance, must be appreciated.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif seemed in an exuberant mood as he inaugurated the project, talking about the number of jobs the solar park would provide and announcing a gift of Rs20m for the workers there. He also described as a great achievement the fact that the Shahbaz Sharif government managed to get a ‘discount’ of Rs2m from the Chinese company involved.

However, no business entity makes an investment unless the figures line up as they should, and this is a very sound commercial investment for the Chinese company.

The tone of the government’s self-congratulatory note might be understandable; nevertheless it bears mentioning here that though this promise appears to have panned out, too many have proved false earlier.

It would assuage the citizenry’s and critics’ doubts better were the team tasked with addressing the energy crisis seen to be focusing urgently on the next step in the process of making this country more energy-secure.

Apart from the further phases planned for QASP, several other power-generation initiatives are also either already under way or in the pipeline.

Given the scale of these, and the large sums involved in their execution, there must be the strictest possible vigilance in terms of transparency and accountability at all levels. The country’s energy needs are far too pressing to brook either delay, or smokescreens.

Published in Dawn, May 7th, 2015

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