The New Nation - Internet Edition

A REPORT in this paper on Sunday stated that the country's power generation came down to 3,324 mw only on Saturday, the lowest in recent years, resulting in large scale power outages across the country even on the weekly holiday. The business community is wailing to get the government's attention to their demand for improving power supply. The government recently declared monetary and fiscal policies that sound sweet on the ears of potential investors for their greater tax breaks and other forms of incentives. But the usefulness of such policies is seriously in doubt for poor power supply.

Entrepreneurs are unlikely to risk their money in building new industries if the same cannot be run from lack of power. This sends a powerful negative signal to investors. Power generation should be planned both for the short term and the medium and long terms. For the short term, government should do much more in getting better services from the ageing power generation units. Repair, rehabilitation and maintenance works must be much improved. The government should buy the excess power that some industries who have their own power generating systems are capable of producing.

For the medium and long terms, all efforts must be directed to installing coal-based power plants. A great deal of precious time has been lost in dilly-dallying on this matter. The country has about 9.2 tcf of unused gas left whereas there is proven coal reserves of the equivalent of 60 tcf of gas. Thus, medium and longer term needs of energy should be taken care of by exploiting this vast coal reserve. Precious gas should be used for producing fertiliser and use in the transport sector. The abundant and less expensive coal reserves should be used for power generation. This is also the international practice.