An energy crisis is any great shortfall in the supply of energy resources to an economy. It usually refers to the shortage of oil and additionally to electricity or other natural resources.

The crisis often has effects on the rest of the economy, with many recessions being caused by an energy crisis in some form. In particular, the production costs of electricity rise, which raises manufacturing costs.

For the consumer, the price of petrol and diesel for cars and other vehicles rises, leading to reduced consumer confidence and spending, higher transportation costs and general price rising.
Crisis” is one word which has become part of ordinary Pakistani’s vocabulary like nothing else. First we have sugar crisis, then wheat followed by electricity and to add more fuel to the fire now we are going through the worst gas shortage in our history. In Punjab this crisis has hurt the most with every person suffering its consequences. Thousands of daily waged workers have become jobless in industrial areas like Faisalabad, in homes women folk is suffering to feed their children, passengers wait for hours as the public transport has no CNG while those having personal transport wait for hours in order to obtain much required CNG refilling.
Our innocent executives like their predecessor have a bucket full of excuses in order to justify this mismanagement. For price hike and declining economy they have the common tag line of “market mechanism” and “global slowdown” to justify this phenomena. In case of electricity and gas load shedding they can find no good reason but to curse increasing demand. The reality which they never accept is the fact that this shortfall is depriving our state from billions of rupees by not availing this opportunity of earning revenue, instead of wasting time on IMF imposed RGST and much more. Some conspiracy theories have floated for quite some time blaming this shortfall as a dirty mean to maximize their benefits. Like in electricity crisis they have managed to pull out the much debated Rental Power Projects while in case of gas shortage they are earning billions from taxes imposed on petroleum products and LPG. In short this recklessness can only be justified by only one reason, which is that our plans on day to day basis rather than planning in years as done in the developed countries.
Energy resources have depleted! Whatever resources are available are simply too expensive to buy or already acquired by countries which had planned and acted long time ago. Delayed efforts in the exploration sector have not been able to find sufficient amounts of energy resources. Nations of the world which have their own reserves are not supplying energy resources anymore; only the old contracts made decades ago are active. Airplanes, trains, cars, motorbikes, buses and trucks, all modes of transportation are coming to a standstill. Many industries have closed due to insufficient power supply. Price of oil has gone above the ceiling. At domestic level, alternate methods like solar, biogas and other methods are being tried for mere survival.

The above is a likely scenario of Pakistan and around the globe after 25 years. A pessimistic view, but realistic enough to think about and plan for the future. But are we doing anything about it? Let’s have a look at the current energy situation of Pakistan and the world.