Load shedding without discrimination in Quetta
The Baloch Hal News
QUETTA: There is no discrimination in punishing the people while resorting to announced or unannounced load shedding by the Quetta Electricity Supply Company (QESCO) in Balochistan.
Regardless of the status, the Chief Minister and the Governor suffered too in across the board load shedding in this Province.
However, there is prolonged load shedding in rural areas of Balochistan where the duration is close to 20 hours a day denying drinking water facility to the people defending on power supply or operating tube wells.
Load shedding in the Provincial Capital is around eight hours a day. Early hours of the day begin in Quetta with load shedding and people are seldom hears the Azan for the Fajr prayers, local residents of Saryab Road claimed.
Both the Governor’s House and Chief Minister’s Secretariat have generator facility. Both the Governor’s House and the Chief Minister are housing the bosses as guests only that too during the day. Both the Governor and Chief Minister go back to their private residences using the Governor’s House and CM Secretariat for their office work only. Thus their stay in both the houses are for a few hours a day. Thus load shedding for both the houses is irrelevant.
However, both the Governor’s House and CM Secretariat are located in a highly sensitive area of the Provincial Capital where maximum security measures are invoked.
There are sensitive installation particularly the GPO, the Telegraph and Telephone House, offices of the sensitive security agencies, the Civil Secretariat are located at the same place where the duration of load shedding is minimum, less than four hours a day.
However, all these sensitive places have their own generators barring the civil secretariat where there is a complete black out when power supply is cut off during the load shedding.
The life comes to a standstill in this Provincial Capital as most of the hospitals and emergency services having no alternate power supply facility barring a few or emergency operation theaters of the Civil Hospital or the Bolan Medical College Teaching Hospital where tens of thousands of patients are reporting daily for medical treatment.
The situation is worst in remote districts of Balochistan where load shedding is normally range from 18 hours to 22 hours a day.
Cantonment area is barred for the civilians and journalists are no exception. Army Cantonment Area is a barricaded township and civilians are discouraged from visit. Thus no information comes out from the barricades city. Thus there is less information about the load shedding and its impact on the lives of the people living there.
narender singh: 
Hasnain: 
kaal Yug: 
ABU BAKAR: 
mueem khan baloch:
There have been alot of talk. From hydro to wind to wave. The problem with pakistan is that, none of these options are going to work. Pakistan is a small country compared to its population. hydro dams aside from being expensive in an effectively bankrupt country, drown large amounts of precious land, so Pakistan can not meet all of its energy needs by hydro generation. wind, solar and wave technologies are not proven and are expensive toys which hardly contribute a few percentage of power demands in the most rich and technologically superior countries so Pakistan should not gamble on these toys and spend its precious money on them. Coal power plants are a very attractive option, since pakistan has coal reserves to provide its energy needs for several dozen years, but they are dirty and generally any kind of power plants are not cheap. A 1,000 MW plant costs upwards of a billion euroes, and that is only the price of the plant and does not include a billion dollar more needed to develop a large enough mine to feed coal for the plant. Nuclear plants cost several times more and can cost upto 10 billion dollars for a 1,200 MWh. Pakistan does not have the technology to make nuclear power plant and currently no other country also wants to sell nuclear plants to Pakistan due to terrorism problem. Pakistan as of now is short by 6,000 MW and as the population grows and people’s expectations shoot up and half of Pakistan that is right now not connected to electric grid, become connected, You can imagine how many plants Pakistan has to make. Also it takes anywhere between 4 years for a small coal plant to 12 years for a large dam or nuclear plant to be built.
Right now facilities like airconditioners and computers are used by less than 10% of pakistan and most of the economy is based on ancient agricultural techniques. If pakistan is ever to become modern and industrialized then it needs, at least 1 Kilowatt hour capacity for every person. With a current estimated population of 180 million that comes to 180 thousand Megawatt hour capacity. Pakistan has now just 20 thousand. With growing population Pakistan would need more than 360 thousand MWh of energy by 2050, when Pakistan’s population hits 360 million.
So what is the solution. Pakistan does not have money and technology to develop its own plants. Independent power producers and private generating units are also not a long term option as they are thieves selling the same electricity in Pakistan for up to 55 US cents per kilowatt hour as compared to 12 cents in Canada and United States, under the pretext of investment in a risky terrorist infested country. Only one option remains, which is fortunately for Pakistan is both very cheap and reliable as well as least time consuming. The option has only one glitch, and that is, it will accompany the wrath of USA. That option is Iran. Iran can provide Pakistan with almost unlimited amount of natural gas which is much cheaper than the prevailing LNG prices in the world. Also Iran has a very developed electricity generation system and has offered Pakistan to meet the entire Pakistani shortage of electricity by offering the subsidized rate of 11 cents per kilowatt hour. Iran has even offered to build the entire transmission lines to Pakistan entirely with its own money and expertise on a record time of 14 months. If Pakistan just says ok. there will be no load shedding by the next summer. It is a very brilliant option both economically as well as security wise. Economically Pakistan will get as much power as it needs comparatively cheaply, and can spend its little money on developing industries and other needed infra structure instead of building power plants. And since Pakistan is going to be dealing with a government that is the brotherly government of Iran, Pakistan will no more need to play a slave to IPP’s. These kind of arrangements are immensely successful and promote peace and prosperity, for example almost all of the countries in continental Europe buy their power from France and Germany. But alas our leaders are too afraid of US. They have not learnt anything from Turkey which is in a similar situation to Pakistan being an American client. But Turkey despite being a client has defined its red lines with USA regarding its national security. So Turkey buys both gas and electricity from Iran, and Americans understand that Turkish people will not listen to them in these regards unless USA could satisfy their energy needs instead of Iran. But since USA can not even satisfy its own energy needs and has to import energy itself then Turks buy cheap energy from Iran. Pakistan could do the same if it had the guts to tell Americans that either they should meet the national energy needs by the next summer or that Iranians will be invited to take care of our problem. It is a choice Pakistan has to make today and not tomorrow. Iran is pakistan’s only option. And pakistan is lucky that its only option is in the lap of a brotherly country which is not only trustworhty but also eagerly willing to help out. Pakistan should not die of energy starvation while its brother is willing to feed it.