Solving Pakistan’s crippling energy crisis has been high on the government’s list of priorities since the day it took office. Pakistan faces severe power shortages with few substantive efforts made to alleviate the problem in recent years. Currently the government is working on what it considers a holistic strategy, intended to develop several energy producing sectors at the same time. Expansions to nuclear power capacity are ongoing in Chashma and an additional reactor is being added to the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANNUPP). The government is pushing to install coal-fired thermal power plants near Thar, and is exploring options to increase Pakistan’s hydel power capacity. One of the main projects on the hydel side is the Diamer-Bhasha damn, a gravity dam in the preliminary stages of construction in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB). The dam is expected to produce 4,500 megawatts (MW). Construction recently faced a setback when the World Bank (WB) refused to provide funding in its long term financing plan. The capacity for power generation in the northern areas is estimated to be as high as 50,000 MW. However Pakistan has been unable to exploit this natural resource because of logistical, political and financial constraints. The Kalabagh dam is a contentious issue for the governments of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Sindh who fear they will be deprived of their water rights if the dam is built. At this stage, it is not worth revisiting that project at the cost of federal unity. The WB’s decision to withhold financing is no surprise. The WB and other development lenders have over the years developed a negative view about ‘big dams’ because of implications to the local ecology and habitat and the displacement of people during construction of reservoirs. The WB is also concerned about the status of the area where the dam is located and has asked Pakistan to make sure India has no formal objections. According to the 1960 Indus Water Treaty, Pakistan controls the three western rivers of the Indus water system, including the Indus itself, on which the dam is being constructed, and hence no objections should be forthcoming. India has a powerful diplomatic voice that the WB is taking into consideration. Given this, the PM has said Pakistan will manage the financing itself. This is an excellent response and we hope the PM is able to say the same thing about other projects that Pakistan has asked lenders to finance in the past. While the government’s prioritisation of power generation is positive, there were problems with its method in solving the crisis over the last year, which focused on curing the symptoms rather than the disease. The government paid off Rs 500 billion to the various power companies that were owed money, but by not tackling bill collection, default and line losses as well, it ensured the circular debt crisis would repeat itself. Belatedly the government has started cutting power to state organs that owe billions in arrears. It was heartening to see electricity supply cut to government ministries and even the Supreme Court in the same way that an average citizen’s electricity would be cut off if they did not pay their bills. The government is currently the largest defaulter on its bills; this state of affairs must end immediately. The government should also not make unrealistic promises about solving the energy crisis in record time when it is clear that the problem will take longer to fix. Khawaja Asif, Minister for Water and Power, recently adjusted his claims of how much load shedding the public faces because he apparently failed to take into account that electricity demand increases exponentially during the summer. Having scrapped plans for Rental Power Projects (RPPs) that could have alleviated public misery in the short term, the government should be honest in describing how long the energy crisis will last. In the short term the government needs to collect bills from defaulters and thieves and ensure electricity to people who pay their bills. In the medium to long term, exploiting Pakistan’s hydel capacity and changing the power mix to expand coal and renewable sources must take priority.*