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EDITORIAL: Gas load management

As revealed by Minister for Information Qamar Zaman Kaira in a press conference after a federal cabinet meeting, the government has adopted a four-month gas load management plan. The plan envisages saving gas by cutting it off in rotation to manufacturing and the CNG industry two days a week in order to keep domestic consumers supplied. Industry sources say December-January are crunch months every year since demand rises in the domestic sector. The four-month timeframe adopted by the cabinet does not make sense in the light of this fact.

The CNG Association has outright rejected the plan, threatening to go on indefinite strike if it is not withdrawn. Some manufacturing industry sectors too have balked at the government’s suggestion that alternative fuels such as furnace oil and diesel be used on the two days supplies are suspended. The textile sector however, which was in the forefront of demands for uninterrupted gas supply to industry, seems reasonably mollified, if their advertisements in the press are anything to go by. Urea manufacturing industry has been assured gas supply as raw material, while they will suffer the same cuts as the rest of industry in gas as fuel.

Given the shortage, no new industrial gas connections will be sanctioned from December 2009 to December 2010, nor will new cities and villages be provided supply, the exception being gas producing areas such as Balochistan.

The annual winter shortage of gas only highlights a growing problem of energy shortage in Pakistan. The country still relies for up to 50 percent for its energy needs on gas. The main gas field at Sui, which still accounts for some 40 percent of the country’s needs, is estimated to run dry between the years 2020 to 2030. Some new fields discovered elsewhere in the country are still to come on line, while those in operation are still insufficient.

This situation has increased the importance and urgency of implementing the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline. Unless this is constructed on a war footing, the energy shortage can only grow, with crisis proportions looming by 2012. Pakistan signed an agreement with Iran last July for the import of 750 mcf per day through this pipeline, which could produce 5,000 MW of electricity. This too may be insufficient. The pipeline has been bedevilled by Indian withdrawal, price issues and US pressure to prevent Pakistan doing business with Iran. One report hints at intelligence agencies’ scepticism regarding the project, possibly because of the Jundullah complication (Jundullah is a Baloch nationalist group conducting armed struggle against the Iranian government, while reportedly basing itself in Pakistani Balochistan).

The energy scenario requires a multifaceted response. The government should implement the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project as soon as possible, take conservation measures to decrease wasteful use of energy, and induct alternative, renewable energy technology as quickly as possible. The winter gas shortage for example, would be helped immensely by the introduction and widespread use of solar water heaters. Remote communities, the electrification of which from the national grid is prohibitively costly, could benefit from solar, wind, bio-mass and other renewable energy sources if the vision and will were in evidence. Last but not least, the Thar coal field with the potential to supply all the country’s energy needs and more, should be developed on urgent basis to fuel not only Pakistan’s current energy needs, but also its future growth prospects. *

SECOND EDITORIAL: A ray of hope for working women

The latest legislation passed by the National Assembly (NA) to protect women against sexual harassment in the workplace provides a much-needed ray of hope amidst the ever-increasing deluge of catastrophes currently hounding the government. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2009 to amend the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and Code of Criminal Procedure was passed without opposition by the NA and this in itself is a positive break from tradition. Perhaps the most important aspect of this legislation is declaring sexual harassment — a staple feature in a patriarchal society such as ours — a punishable offence attracting imprisonment for up to three years or a fine of Rs 500,000 or both. The mere promulgation of such legislation is a major victory for Pakistani women. The legislation adds a new provision, 509-A to Section 509 of the PPC. It defines the term “insulting modesty or causing sexual harassment” as “whoever intending to insult the modesty of any woman, utters any word, makes any sound or gesture, or exhibits any object, intending that such word or sound shall be heard, or that gesture or object shall be seen, by such a woman, or intrudes the privacy of such a woman.”

This bill comes at a time when the self-appointed moral police of our society are singling out women as their primary targets, with the Taliban killing two female school teachers in Bajaur on Wednesday and the parading of naked women in the streets in several parts of the country for charges ranging from prostitution (Phoolnagar, September 29, 2009) to settling family feuds (Multan, April 27, 2004). The government deserves credit for challenging the persistent patriarchy that afflicts Pakistani society.

Legislation that attempts to curtail sexual harassment is notoriously tricky to implement in any society, let alone a cultural minefield such as ours. Sexual harassment is sometimes a premeditated exercise and is almost universally a matter of habit and pure instinct in Pakistani society. This makes it difficult to eradicate. Both convention and conditioning renders it hard for most women to lodge a complaint under the banner of sexual harassment as the average woman will fear being socially castigated with entrenched prejudices such as ‘having asked for it’. Irrefutable evidence for such charges is seldom available. Also, the fact that such a culturally sensitive issue requires going through routine legal procedure and filing a police complaint is likely to discourage most women from pursuing this course. It is nearly impossible to qualify or quantify sexual innuendo as the issue of sexual harassment is rooted in whether or not a woman is offended by a man’s advances. Many men still labour under the illusion that most women appreciate, even seek out their advances.

That being said, this legislation provides a tangible recourse for women who are being sexually harassed in the workplace. The legislation aims at curbing both the rampant, direct sexual overtures that Pakistani women face on a daily basis as well as the more benign stream of implied overtures that inevitably come their way. The real triumph or failure of this attempt, however, rests with Pakistani men and their ability or inability to appreciate the opposite gender as an individual deserving of equal opportunity and a human being worthy of the same respect that men demand for themselves. *

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