This post contains a Load Shedding Essay for the students of FSC 2nd Year and Graduation. Students can write the same essay under the title, Essay on Load Shedding, Load Shedding in Pakistan Essay, Essay on Energy Crisis in Pakistan, Essay on the Menace of Load Shedding and Essay on Load Shedding in Pakistan. There are 04 appropriate quotations already placed in this Essay. The total words of the essay are 1200+. I feel that this essay is a little long for Class 12 students. However, they can decrease the length of this essay by removing some content from it. I have taken this essay from Kips Notes. If you are looking for English Essays with Quotations you should visit this. However, separately Quotations for Essays are also available.
Essay on The Menace of Load Shedding in Pakistan with Quotations
“Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.” Certainly, Thomas Edison the inventor of the light bulb did not mean to decry WAPDA and PEPCO when he said those words. However, if he were to encounter 12 to 15 hours of electricity load shedding a day in the scorching summer of the subcontinent, he would surely be sufficiently swayed to squash his steadfastness. In our beloved country that is self-dependent in political and social corruption, terrorism, economic crisis and illiteracy, electricity load shedding is not a bolt out of blue but a stuck-out sore thumb. It is the darling child of the poor economy, political and professional incompetence and insincerity and the doting mother of exorbitant social and economic distress.
Pakistan is a developing country afflicted by the appalling apparition of electricity load shedding. The industry is being devoured and agriculture is consumed by it resulting in an emaciated economy. A noted economist Dr. Salman Shah says that Pakistan has lost up to 10% of its GDP over the last six years due to power shortages. According to the Planning Commission of Pakistan, GDP is suffering a loss of almost 3 to 4% every year due to power and gas shortages. The businessmen, industrialists, peasants, technicians, labourers, and students all are its victims. The continuous load shedding for 12 to 15 hours in summer and 8 to 10 hours in winter coupled with huge bills is gradually taking common citizens to their psychological thresholds turning them more and more violent because of our too much reliance on this scientific wonder. Here George Bernard Shaw sounds right when he says:
“Science never solves a problem without creating ten more”
With sporadic yet costly power supply to industry, the industrialists tend to either increase the price of commodities or shift to other countries with better power supply conditions. This regrettable condition also bothers businessmen related to the industry. AS India is stopping more and more water from Pakistani rivers to build controversial dams, the Pakistani farmer is being crushed when he can’t use tube well to irrigate his crops due to load shedding and when he has to pay lots of bills leaving him a minimum margin of profit. The daily wage workers associated with local businesses like tailoring, service stations, electronics, motor mechanics, welders, dry cleaners, juices, wheel balancing and net cafes are facing financial difficulties in the long absence of electricity. Most of the students in Pakistan belong to an average social-economic class. They don’t have arrangements for uninterrupted power supply at their schools or homes. So they don’t have any other option but to bear its brunt in the form of poor education. The absence of light is darkness in the same way as the absence of electricity is load shedding and the picture of darkness is essentially dark.
Dale Carnegie says”
“By becoming interested in the cause, we are less likely to dislike the effect.”
However, a close inspection of the causes of load shedding, in spite of appeasing, exasperates us. The total power generation capacity of Pakistan till 2014 was 22797MW. The average demand is 17000MW to 19000MW and the average production is about 14500MW. There is an average shortfall of 400MW to 5000MW throughout the year. The question is why on earth we have to face this menace when we have greater power generation capacity than our demand. The answers are many. The major ones are poor political priorities and circular debt.
Bullied by brash dictators for almost four and a half-decade and embroiled in their own fracas for almost 25 years, the political parties of Pakistan have not been able to solve the problem of the energy crisis. There has been a lot of rhetoric and tall promises yet it has never been their true priority. Ironically, most of the hydel power generation which is 6761MW was convened by the dictators. To add insult to injury, instead of increasing hydel power production capacity, the political governments chose thermal power production sources which are the last nails in the coffin of our exhausting economy.
In fact, it is the dependence on thermal power production that gave rise to the fiend of circular debt which has exacerbated the situation of the energy crisis in Pakistan. In this vicious circular debt, Oil-based power plants (GENCOs) owe money to oil suppliers, and the government-owned power distribution companies (DISCOs) owe money to oil-based power plants that can only be paid if DISCOs get paid by all the consumers. And getting paid by all consumers across the country has yet been an uphill task. Moreover, the inefficiencies of government-owned generation and distribution companies, cosy deals struck with providers of rental power plants, overstaffing, and free provision of electricity to Wapda employees, poor maintenance of plant equipment, obsolete technologies resulting in technical losses, corruption are also contributing indirectly in electricity load shedding.
Albert Einstein is absolutely right when he says:
“The significant problem we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”
Obviously, we will certainly have to upgrade our thinking level in order to find solutions for such a quandary. With the present evasive mindset, we are sure to aggravate the situation rather than solve it. Certain short and long-term substantial solutions are required. As a short-term solution, the government should purchase cheap electricity from China. The mismanagement of power distribution and generation companies should be rectified through special task forces. The government should show zero tolerance for electricity theft at any level. Daily business hours should be reduced to one hour at least.
Long-term solutions require the enhancement in hydropower generation capacity and the use of alternative power generation sources. To enhance hydropower generation capacity, we need to build dams. Pakistan is a gifted country in this respect. It has such geographical features that can help us build dams with minimum cost. Only a nationwide strong and sincere political will is required to accomplish this task. The sweltering summers of Pakistan are also a blessing in disguise because we can use them as a means of getting solar energy. We are best suited and situated to use solar energy as the primary source of power generation. Although we have started using it on a limited level, we need to install it in an organized way. The Grid-Tie System, if implemented in an organized way with the help of the banking and private sector, can bring wonderful results. Quite a few areas in Pakistan are also suitable to use wind energy for power generation. The most important thing for us as a nation is to develop an attitude of energy conservation even after having attained every kind of solution. Although facing grave shortages of electricity, we are extremely extravagant in its use. The government can bring infrastructure to provide us electricity, but it is we who are responsible for its proper use. It is not something that the more we spend, the more we get. Rather in a world vexed by wars to seize energy sources, we need to treasure it as a national property. In this regard, we should take the advice of Confucius who says:
“He who will not economize will have to agonize.”
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