THE power riots that have rocked Punjab since the weekend and threaten to spread to other provinces, as ‘loadshedding’ is in effect for up to 18 hours a day in parts of the country, have their roots in mismanagement of the power sector over the last decade, exacerbated by the lack of a coherent power policy by the present government. For a country which has an installed capacity of more than 18,000MW, producing less than 10,000MW at a time when demand is nearly 17,000MW is a dire indictment of the state of the power sector. The facts are well-known: Pakistan produces electricity that is too expensive (because of diminishing gas supplies and an over-reliance on imported and costly furnace oil), subsidises the too-expensive electricity for political reasons using money it doesn’t have, loses too much electricity to theft and technical leakages and collects too little revenue from delinquent end-users.

Now, with fresh riots roiling Punjab, the economic and social cost of the power crisis has come into focus. At a time when the economy is already struggling with low growth, high inflation and a sagging job market, the power crisis is estimated to add up to between one and two per cent of lost GDP each year. An inverted pyramid of pain and suffering, small businesses which cannot afford expensive generators are the worst hit as neither adequate lighting nor electricity to power tools and machinery is available when the power is switched off. But even big businesses, such as the large textile houses which have large gas-powered generators, are suffering as the gas crunch hits. When work stops, so do the payments to daily-wage and piece-rate workers. And when payments stop to workers who spend up to 70 per cent of their incomes on food stuff — as do people in the lower-income brackets — the disastrous effect on families is easy to gauge. And when a population at the end of its tether is subjected to nightlong bouts of power cuts, the anger will inevitably spill out on to the streets.

Unhappily, when Pakistanis suffer, their leaders merely squabble among themselves. The accusations and counteraccusations exchanged by Punjab and the central government are just theatre: the power crunch is anything but a surprise and until it hit with a vengeance there was little seriousness shown by any side to stave it off. Even now, in the midst of the present crisis, there appears to be little thought being given to mitigating the next crisis that is sure to hit in weeks or a couple of months at most.