Comments on: No Air Conditioning – No Load Shedding

By: voicepk

voicepk — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:32:22 +0000

Ask Your Dear Mr. Zardari & Thousands of Ministers, Governors, Chief Ministers etc to Live Without an Air-conditioner for a Few Hours….Will They Die Without it? Will Mr. president Die if He Wont Sleep on a Multi Million Dollar Bed? Will He Die If He Reduces The Luxuries of President House, Prime Minister House etc? Will Mr. President Die if He Travels in a 1400 CC car? Are the Ministers Going To Die If they are Not Given Free Electricity, Water, Cell Phones, Car Fuels of Thousands of Litre and Several Lakhs of Salary and Allowances?

If they will Die without these Luxuries Then They Better Die First and I will Definitely Switch off My Room’s Fan & Light.

They have increased the electricity rates to 400 times since they have sworn into the Govt. yet They want us to stop using electricity yet Pay The Bills of Thousands so They can Afford to Live like Mughal Kings.

By: talal khan

talal khan — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:57:34 +0000

Mullah Umar
You claim that talibans have only killed murtids and kafirs.How many Hindus,sikhs they have killed? They have killed Afganis,Pakistanis mostly.If you go by their definition of kafir,then only 10/12 persons would be eligible to be called muslims.Why you need a fatwa fromulema against talibs?Every person having some humanity detests Taliban.

By: Believer

Believer — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:45:12 +0000

There is nothing wrong trying to save electricity for the short term BUT the truth remains that this shortfall is not due to air conditioners, but incompetence.

I have seen portable air conditioners in the UK that cost £99 (roughly 13,000 ruppees). Theses are enough to cool a medium sized room and only consume electricity equal to a 100 Watt bulb.

A solar fan (made in China) is available for £19 (roughly 2,500 ruppees). It must be far cheaper to improt from China to Pakistan and save a lot money in terms of electricity bills.

Why can’t we become sensible and stop blaming others. If we stop using air coniditioners, it may well serve the purpose for a couple of seasons but who will take the blame in future (our past record shows that we become worse day by day so short fall would be higher in future). What will we stop then; breathing?

By: ks74

ks74 — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:49:07 +0000

I agree with Mr. Dar here. It is a totally absurd idea. It is like stop driving to save fuel or stop cooking on natural gas to save it. Government should take more concrete steps to make sure there will be no more electricity shortage. We have received billions of dollars in international aid and a big portion of it should have been diverted towards projects like dams, power generation etc.

By: Muhammad Dar

Muhammad Dar — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:25:48 +0000

I am shocked to see this as an idea being floated around here! Really!!

How does stopping the use of AC help “in any way” our growing energy needs. You force people to stop using ACs…and if they even do, how does that help in the long term?

How about putting up ‘realistic’ ideas like build more dams or power plants. Or increase the capacity and age of the existing dams!

And ACs are not a luxury in Pakistan anymore. Temperatures normally float around 45 C in Lahore. I remember I even used to sweat under a fan in that much heat.

Stopping the use of ACs is a retarded idea. Creating more energy sources is the right step for more energy.

By: ataraxis6

ataraxis6 — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:40:06 +0000

Chief Sahib zindabad!

SC suspends carbon surcharge
http://thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=23154

By: tahir mahmood

tahir mahmood — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:01:33 +0000

The Kalabagh Dam was a project launched in PPP first govt. and until 1977 had completed all prints and even roads to Daudkhel and Kalabagh and some quarters were also built on site. Then came Saeed Afzal and Asim Sattar’s pir Mardi-i-Momin Mard-i-Haq who made Ge. Fazal Raziq (Brother of gen. Fazal-i-Haq) chairman of Wapda. Fazal-i-Raziq was a corrupt general like his brother and other cronies of Zia. Since upper management of Wapda knew about the heavy compensation awarded for lands in Mangla and Tarbela projects, these Wapda higher ups invested heavily in the land that was in the catchment area of Kalabagh Dam. After multiple reiterations of dam design, the dam location moved a little away from its original proposed site where these guys had invested heavily. These ppl. including Shahnawaz Khan, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Fazl-Raziq etc. then asked Wapda to build the dam on the originally proposed site (where they had bought the land real cheap and now wanted compensation) or they will never allow Wapda to build this dam. Upon refusal from Wapda, these guys who were predominantly from NWFP raised the slogan that Nawshera will be ruined by raised water level if the Dam is built. Wali Khan had said that he will bomb the dam. Zia ul Haq allowed politicizing of the dam issue and never tried to resolve the issue.

The opposition to built the dam was then propagated in Sindh that once Kalabagh Dam is built Punjab will build canals for its northwestern area and will steel Sindh’s water. The ppl. of Sindh which already have mistrust for Punjab further opposed the dam. Then MQM joined the opposition also. the result is that neither Zia in 11 years and Pervaiz Mush in his 10 years did not let this dam to be built. The civil govts. of PPP and PML(N) were so weak that they never even took it serious to build the dam.

Everybody knows that electricity when produced by Dam has no operational cost since water head is providing the potential energy to be converted to electricity. It is very cheap to have hydel energy as compared to thermal coal or diesel power. If we do not build Kalabagh Dam, Pakistan will be in energy crisis. Convincing ppl of Karachi in summer is relatively easier to be agreeing for Kalabagh Dam.

The other culprit in this case is who nobody knows or cares is Pakaistn Atomic Energy Commission who was supposed to provide 1500MW from Chashma in 1985. Nobody asks PAEC for that.

Adding KESC to Wapda in 1986 was another blunder done in Zia’s time. KESC ppl. never wanted to be a part of Wapda. KESC never added any power to National Grid and on contraary started consuming all Wapds’s Power. In Mush’s time KESC in the name of privatization was sold to Siemens and commissions were made in this deal by people who everybody knows. KESC was sold at a fractional cost to a company which has no experience in running a utility company. Per design, Siemens never invested anything in producing power. Now Babar Ghauri says it was a mistake to sell KESC. It was not a mistake it was an act done in mal-intentions.

There is no solution for energy crisis unless we build Kalabagh Dam or build some nuclear power plants.

By: SnrCtzn

SnrCtzn — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:06:05 +0000

@ fabhatti.
In our country of ‘Khudadad-i-Pakistan’ it is not only the low-income guys
who are prone to electricity ‘power thefts’ to which-ever province they belong, but it is also very ‘fashionable’ on the part of the higher income strata to give a ‘slip’ to the local Electric Co; & to save a ‘little’ more money, by paying less.
All readers may have read of one such recent ‘power-theft, by that despicable ‘Mush’on his ‘farm’ or a ‘palace’ at Chak Shahzad Islamabad.
This also reminds me of year 1978/79,when along with others, I carried-out a survey of ‘Kunda’ connections in Karachi cantonement, on the orders of the then Station Commander.
Not surprisingly, many ‘well-to-do’ & ‘respected’ people of the ‘high-society’ were found to have resorted to ‘Connections; one for example, included a then serving (Army) Brigadier who had given an electric ‘Kunda ‘connection’ to a mosque in his next-door neighborhood, & then with the connivance of the ‘Imam’ of that mosque, an industralist had also managed to further pull that same electric wire to his own house in the same vicinity. Not a bad effort. Eh?

By: SnrCtzn

SnrCtzn — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:04:57 +0000

@ fabhatti.
In our country of ‘Khudadad-i-Pakistan’ it is not only the low-income guys
who are prone to electricity ‘power thefts’ to which-ever province they belong, but it is also very ‘fashionable’ on the part of the higher income strata to give a ‘slip’ to the local Electric Co; & to save a ‘little’ more money, by paying less.
All readers may have read of one such recent ‘power-theft, by that despicable ‘Mush’on his ‘farm’ or a ‘palace’ at Chak Shahzad Islamabad.
This also reminds me of year 1978/79,when along with others, I carried-out a survey of ‘Kunda’ connections in Karachi cantonement, on the orders of the then Station Commander.
Not surprisingly, many ‘well-to-do’ & ‘respected’ people of the ‘high-society’ were found to have resorted to ‘Kunda’connections; one for example, included a then serving (Army) Brigadier who had given an electric ‘Kunda ‘connection’ to a mosque in his next-door neighbourhood, & then with the connivance of the ‘Imam’ of that mosque, an industralist had also managed to futher pull that same electric wire to his own house in the same vicinity. Not a bad effort. Eh?

By: fabhatti

fabhatti — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:05:50 +0000

Eliminating the air conditioners wont solve a thing. ..

One has to eliminate the power theft..

See, any one who is actually paying the bills will be very keen on reducing its usage. There is a big middle class which cannot misuse the electricity for fear of inflated bills. But if you go to the villages where we have the KUNDI system setup with the collaboration of the WAPDA line men… the power thieves are ruthless in their usage of the electricity. They cook with inefficient ovens (2000 watts) which might be left on for an extended period.. Unlike an air conditioner which may be expensive, these oven can be bought quite cheap.

Power theft is very common in FATA, Balochistan and rural areas of Sindh as well as Punjab.

There is a similar debate on the topic “Is Loadshedding really that bad in Pakistan” (http://reallythatbad.com/?p=4346)