THE residents of Rawalpindi’s Chatri Chowk are faced with an acute shortage of gas — or maybe one can say that they are blessed with a little gas supply. The outage usually starts in the afternoon and continues until the next morning. Sometimes the duration is even longer.

Needless to say, gas shortage has turned residents’ lives upside down, and not being able to cook food on time at home is just one part of it.

Factories cannot operate for long hours and their production takes a hit as a result, which then sets off a chain reaction of effects involving the shortage of goods in markets, rising prices and unemployment.

The government should immediately take remedial steps in this regard and work on developing gas fields to increase its supply. Besides, efforts should also be made for power generation. Run-of-the-river dams may be built so that we get cheap electricity and still have the required water for irrigation. Another option may be thermal power stations running on coal, a resource that is both cheap and locally available.

I hope the government and its technical and scientific experts will take all possible steps to improve gas and power production and distribution.

Maham Amanat
Lahore

Published in Dawn, May 3rd, 2022