THE energy crisis in Pakistan has not only badly affected the country's economic growth it has also paralysed life in both the rural and urban areas because of long hours of loadshedding.

As a result, the Ministry of Water and Power (MOWP) says, the country is suffering losses amounting to Rs219bn in the industrial sector, in addition to the loss of 400,000 jobs and a cut in exports worth Rs75bn a year.

A thorough probe exposes mismanagement, incompetence and certain vested interests on the part of the managers and policymakers as the major cause of the problem. Their decisions favour expensive and non-sustainable rental and thermal power. These options are not only unsustainable they also constitute a considerable drain on the country's dwindling foreign reserves.

Had the policymakers paid heed to the generation of hydel energy, Pakistan would not today be facing such an energy crisis. The Tarbela and Mangla dams constitute a precedent for the sustainability and economic potential of hydropower. While these dams' main purpose is irrigation and power-generation is a by-product, every year they pay back three times their original cost by generating hydroelectricity at less than Rs1 per unit.

Furthermore, large dams are not the only answer in terms of hydroelectricity in Pakistan. The 1,450MW Ghazi-Barotha project on the Indus is a model for run-of-river generated hydroelectricity with negligible storage of water.

The gap between the supply and demand of energy has been piling up; the MOWP deliberated with stakeholders for two and half years and finally brought out a power generation policy in 2002, intended to bridge the gap by adding clean hydroelectricity to the national grid. Under that policy, short-, medium- and long-term plans were chalked out to cumulatively harness 22,555MW of hydropower.

In the short-term, 15 different run-of-river hydropower projects with a total capacity of 1,258MW were scheduled to be completed by June 2007. (Three other projects — the Neelum-Jhelum and Chakothi-Hattian in Azad Kashmir and Kohala on the Jhelum river — with a gross installed capacity of 1,848MW were scheduled to be commissioned in June 2010.) All these projects were delayed causing a serious energy crisis in the country. Had they been implemented according to plan, Pakistan would have had 3,206MW of cheap hydroelectricity to keep the wheel of economic growth turning.

Regrettably, just one project of 86MW (Malakand-III in the NWFP) was completed in eight years, against the 2002 target of 3,226MW. This apparent 'go-slow' strategy of the MOWP vis-à-vis hydropower is what paved the way for thermal and rental power projects. Now, the ministry claims that its latest initiative, that of small dams, will bring about a revolution this cannot be considered anything other than propaganda since all the country will gain after spending Rs31bn will be a mere 7MW of energy and 0.3MAF of water.

The MOWP is trying to convince itself that hydropower projects take too long to execute, but this is a rather weak argument in light of modern hydropower project management.

Many examples are available across the world where hydropower projects were completed in record time. The US, for example, was facing a serious energy crisis during the Second World War. The then president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, put on high priority the operation of the Douglas Dam in Tennessee to generate electricity for national defence purposes.

Construction began in February 1942, and the project was completed within 12 months and 17 days to generate 166MW of hydroelectricity. Similarly, American engineers set another record by completing the Cabinet Gorge Dam on Clark Fork River in half the stipulated time to generate 231MW of hydroelectricity and store 106,000 acre feet of water.

Given that the generation of hydroelectricity incurs no fuel cost, has minimal operating cost and that hydropower plants are durable, Indian policymakers are working towards adding 50,000MW of clean and renewable hydropower to their energy mix and have set some records in this regard.

The multipurpose 520MW Omkareshwar project on the Narmada river in Madhya Pradesh was completed in four and half years instead of the projected six years;the 20MW Kabini hydropower project was completed in just 20 months on the Kabini river, despite geological and climatic challenges; meanwhile, the 13MW hydropower project on the Tawa river was completed in a record time of 22 months.

However, at the top of the list of excellent hydropower project management is the 86MW Malana hydroelectric power project in Himachal Pradesh. It is unique because it was constructed within 30 months against its five-year schedule, and at almost 50 per cent less cost than the approved budget — and that too at a high altitude amidst difficult mountainous terrain.

The project team faced unprecedented geological and climatic challenges but their creative project-scheduling with real-time monitoring made the Malana project a model in hydropower history. It proved that hydropower projects, particularly run-of-river projects, can be completed in minimum time and within the stipulated budget.

In Pakistan, conversely, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) recently took serious notice of the abnormal delay and cost of two under-construction hydropower projects, the 72MW Khan Khwar and the 130MW Dubair Khwar projects.

This nation has every right to have access to clean and renewable energy at affordable cost. Now, when cheap hydel energy has also been recognised as a very effective poverty-eradication tool, Pakistan needs to set up a national mission on hydropower. This can be done if the prime minister pays special heed to the issue, first by clearing the MOWP of deadwood and incompetence, and then by hiring a truly professional and distinguished team. We must accept that the solution to Pakistan's energy crisis lies in cheap hydroelectricity.

The writer is a visiting research fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute.

ahabasi@gmail.com