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Pakistan’s Energy Crisis should be Solved from Chitral...MNA

From Our correspondent

CHITRAL: MNA Chitral and ex minister of State Shahzada Mohiuddin has said that at a time of energy fuelled inflationary pressures amid the deepening electricity crisis, the strategically placed district of Chitral immediately offers the best short and long term solutions to the nation. He referred to repeated offers of the Tajik Ambassador Said Saidbaig to supply Pakistan with 1000 megawatts electricity who had hinted of adding additional power to Pakistan’s national grid after completion of the mega schemes under construction in the Central Asian neighboring country. Talking to newsmen he said that the Ambassador has spoke of a consortium of Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Qatar already executing two huge hydropower projects in Tajikstan that would help meet power needs of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Mohiuddin asked the Prime Minister to task the Minister of Water & Power to take note of the addresses to the Lahore and Rawalpindi Chamber’s of Commerce & Industry by the Tajik Ambassador who offered immediate availability of power if plans of linking the National Grid via Tajikistan with Pakistan were to materialize. Tajikistan is separated from the Chitral district of Pakistan by the Afghan territory of Wakhan that’s barely 20 kilometer wide making it the shortest land link with Central Asia. The neighboring Kryghistan also has surplus electricity that can be linked with the same transmission line thereby adding more megawatts to this project. Furthermore technical studies already conducted by the German GTZ have shown Chitral’s rivers capacity to produce around 6000 megawatts which upon materialization can be added to the same grid without any additional investments into the transmission systems.

The MNA said interestingly, the Amu Darya (Oxus River) flowing into Tajikistan and River Chitral start from the same location and the largely uninhibited Wakhan territory has remained peaceful throughout history remaining largely unscathed even during the Soviet invasion and remains at least 800 kilometers away from the militancy infested Taliban territories south of Kabul. Mohiuddin said that the Ambassador had also spoken about construction work on widening the highway linking Tajik capital Dushanbe with Kryghistan, China and Uzbekistan and stressed that in order to realize its full potential, Pakistan needs to benefit from such opportunities by immediately linking Chitral up with these roads through construction and mostly widening of existing roads leading there.

He said at Lahore the Tajik Ambassador had spoken at a seminar on “National Trade Corridor” to link the country with Pakistan and yet again Chitral offers the best solution as just across its border there is a highway connecting Wakhan to Tajikistan. Interestingly, a Turkish firm is already executing construction of highway dubbed “Afghan Silk Route” that will further link Afghanistan to China via Wakhan.

Mohiuddin stressed that the Tajik energy initiative to supply power to Pakistan, Afghanistan and eventually India was fully backed by the United States and that the World Bank is supportive of the project that is expected to cost $600 million for which tenders are being sought around July. He stressed that only the Chitral route will ensure uninterrupted supply free of any terrorist activity and opening of the Lawari Tunnel in the next two years makes this project the more feasible on both the cost effectiveness as well as the safety point of view.

Mohiuddin quoted US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher’s statement in the latter’s prepared statement before a House Sub-committee on Foreign Affairs, where the US Assistant Secretary of state for both regions said the US was advocating for the countries of Central Asia to supply power to northern Afghanistan, and helping to develop the Afghan electricity system so that the Afghans could benefit from that connection.

He urged the policy makers to take notice of such mega development initiatives just next door and take tangible steps to be part of a regional drive towards progress and mutual prosperity by initiating practical steps through dialogue with our neighbors who are extending a helping at a time when the country’s economy has nose dived. This initiative he stressed offers a way out of Pakistan’s economic woes both on the short as well as the long term basis by ensuring a strong foothold in energy rich Central Asia. Will the policy makers take notice and start thinking out of the box he queried.

He said economists forecast that inaction on the impending crisis will eat away at economic growth worth an estimated 10-15 billion dollars of the GDP each year whose fallout could have disastrous consequences for Pakistan’s poor squeezed between the oil and electricity driven inflationary pressures that has already pushed millions back into the vicious cycle of poverty. Mohiuddin said that any inaction on such generous offers from our neighbors from across the borders amid iron clad guarantees would be a criminal neglect.