Both immediate and longer-term solutions are needed to tackle an energy crisis that has already spiralled out of control. The misery of power outages across the country is not limited to any one segment of society — it is shared, though perhaps in unequal measure, by residential as well as commercial and industrial consumers.

People are suffering in their homes and their workplaces, and factories remain idle at peak hours due to prolonged power cuts or transmission breakdowns. Besides causing productivity losses and a dent in the incomes of entrepreneurs, inactive industrial units further compound the agony of life for labourers, many of whom are daily-wage earners and live continually from hand to mouth. Owners of small-scale businesses are also taking a massive hit.

Publicly at least, the government appears cognisant of the grave dangers associated with a continuing energy crunch. Last week, the federal information minister told the press that ‘We not only want to do firefighting but also rid our people of the problem’ of power shortages. Here it is pertinent to mention that oil- and gas-fired plants may amount to little more than stopgap arrangements in a country with a burgeoning population and a growing demand for electricity.

Large hydropower projects, meanwhile, will not only take many years to complete even if work begins tomorrow; they remain a dicey prospect due to political and environmental concerns and the problems associated with large-scale relocation. Without ignoring any other options that may be on the table, such as the exploitation of Thar coal, Pakistani officialdom would do well to focus on harnessing the country’s renewable energy resources. Small dams and run-of-the-river projects must be encouraged and expedited.

But most importantly, it is time to make a more serious effort to tap the country’s huge wind-power potential — as much as 50,000MW in the Thatta corridor alone, according to official estimates. Given the right incentives, large-scale wind farms could be set up along the coastline in relatively quick time. The country’s future lies not in thermal plants that guzzle imported oil but in indigenous renewable resources such as wind, biomass, tidal and solar power.