Electricity for Pakistan
By the Editor

AT the just concluded conference of South and Central Asian countries, an understanding has been arrived for supply of about 4,000 megawatt of electricity from the two Central Asian Republics of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to Pakistan via Afghanistan.

The meeting also considered pros and cons of the proposed project and agreed to hold further negotiations on the subject in October 2006. This is yet another good initiative that would accelerate the pace of economic development in the participating countries.

There are no two opinions that Pakistan would be needing massive energy input to sustain its economic growth. With this in view, the Government is working on a number of options including setting up of nuclear power plants, development of alternative energy resources, development of its coal reserves, oil and gas exploration at home, building of new water reservoirs to generate hydel power as well and import of gas from Iran, Qatar and Turkmenistan.

Though the Government has been trying to explore all these avenues but almost all of them have certain limitations and therefore, it is imperative that they should be pursued vigorously to materialize our dream of energy security. Import of electricity from two Central Asian Republics would surely help contribute towards economic prosperity.

Similarly, Afghanistan would also be a gainer as it would be receiving royalty besides consuming part of the electricity to meet its growing demand. The project would also give impetus to economic development in Tajekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Above all, the transnational transmission line would create inter-dependency and hence help improve regional environment.

It is also evident that the project would not face any funding problem because international financial institutions and the US Government are willing to cooperate for their own reasons.

However, the situation in Afghanistan, from where this transmission line would be passing, is still uncertain and one cannot say as to when it would stabilize. Prudence therefore, demanded that the Wakhan corridor should have been given preference over the agreed Jalalabad-Kabul route.

The former was much safer than the later one and could have been secured more easily. It is to be seen whether creation of a special security force of the participating countries to protect the transmission line, as proposed by Kabul, wouldn’t make the project economically less feasible.

There are presently also question-marks about availability of necessary electricity for export in these two countries as they have yet to initiate projects to generate necessary power for the purpose.

Hopefully, these and other issues would be addressed in the next meeting in Dushanbe.●