thenews.com.pk
Masood Hasan

At Mr Jaswant Singh’s book launch the other day, during the Q&A session, a gentleman at the back stood up and said, ‘Mr Singh you have been here a few days and you can see how we are suffering from load-shedding – even here a generator is working. Can you please give us our water back so that we can produce some electricity?’ The question was greeted with clapping and laughter and although Mr Singh could not help us, the questioner had made his point. For a nation that has more than its share of bad luck and insurmountable problems, the crippling electricity crisis has us in a deathly thrall, with some areas lucking out and others bearing the brunt. Now a two-day national deliberation has taken place in Islamabad to chalk out measures to meet this nightmare that haunts us.

It is true that Musharraf and his merry men did damn all in nine years to resolve this problem – and most people realise this and accept it, but they cannot forgive an elected government with a 100 ministers on board to have wasted two long years and more and achieved nothing. Instead, all energies have been diverted to many other pantomimes at which Islamabad is so good. In 1983 Skipper A.H. Kardar and his Group 1983 in a seminar warned of the impending electricity disaster. Everyone laughed at the nutters. Who’s laughing now or as the man said, ‘how now brown cow?’ A whole range of good, sensible measures are planned as conservation is regarded as the best policy but mere conservation is not going to save us and none of us at heart is a conservationist.

The answers are somewhere else but if we are going to spend all our energies on that silly operation that has changed NWFP to Khyber-Pakhtoonawa or whatever it is that they call it, then nothing is going to change. Incidentally the ‘change’ in NWFP is going to cost Rs4b – yes Rs4b as tons of stationery, files, boards and what have you are going to be redone. If this is not madness, what is? And does this look like a nation that’s going to save power? Banish the thought. We are not savers. We are wasters. The Hindus are savers, not us. And while all measures being taken up are without doubt, good, sensible measures, who is going to ensure they are implemented and the violators punished? We all know the answer to that.

Each and every one of us is not prepared to go the extra foot – forget the extra mile, to make an effort, lend support and change things. We have less and less water because we are criminally wasting it. In the 1950s water availability per capita here was 5,000 cubic metre. Today it is down to 1500 cubic metre. Pakistan will be ‘water scarce’ or below 1,000 cubic metre by 2035 – some say it may happen by 2020 – just a decade away. We are losing millions of gallons because of wastage, seepage, inefficient systems, absence of laws and worse, no enforcing when these are broken and a public indifference to the issue. There is a gross lack of awareness and from children to adults, widespread misuse of water. Everyone believes water will never end but how wrong they all are. It will, sooner than most think.

In Lahore alone, to cater to the fetish of washing cars daily, service stations are pumping up 48,000 gallons daily using high-pressure jets to clean cars which five minutes later are dusty and dirty again. Stand at any service station and watch the show. It is criminal and yet we are all party to it and that other urban insanity – hosing and washing down our drives. Thousands of gallons literally down the drain. But none of us will stop drivers and servants or even ourselves from wasting precious water on washing vehicles. In terms of overall water losses, this may not amount to a serious figure now but its unchecked practice and absence of rules and enforcing of laws is going to change these very cities well before their time. In Sydney which has a serious water shortage, washing cars is banned. Fines for breaking water saving rules – like not watering gardens between 10am and 5pm, the hottest times of the day, can fetch you a $220 fine – more importantly, implemented. Businessmen breaking rules, $550 fine and water theft slaps you with a $2200 fine. I doubt anyone in any city in Pakistan has ever been fined.

While we all wait for the government to show us the way – it could be a long wait, there are many things we can do ourselves. In almost all homes and establishments, there are leaking faucets and yet none of us will turn them off or ever fix them. We, who are blessed with WCs, think nothing of flushing good, clean water every time we use it for even taking a leak. We leave water running as we wash faces, shave or bathe. We spend hours in bathrooms using up hundreds of gallons, just carrying out daily routine things, yet we never pause and think what we are doing. Our attitude to electricity conservation is the same. Most of us, educated as we are, think nothing of leaving lights and fans on and in many homes, air conditioners on. The equation between a switch and what it means is one that has yet to register with us. Appliances are left on standby all the time and the notion that this too is wasting power, has not registered yet. Using water criminally is not a serious issue at all. A power chief on a visit to Sweden asked his counterpart there how they prevented electricity theft. The Swede thought for a long time and in a perplexed tone asked him, ‘But how do you steal electricity?’

While the government is likely to come up with some good regulations, all these will eventually fail because they will not be implemented. It’s like traffic. The rules are there but the absence of enforcing these makes a mockery of the rules. The same drivers who break all the rules with impunity in the cities are meek as lambs on the motorways. When the traffic police began to implement rules just a couple of years back, no one would dare tread on the zebra crossing. In a few months, the cops forgot and so did the public. Using mobiles while driving is challenged in Karachi and Islamabad but not in Lahore! So when you see a vehicle going 20km in the fast lane, you can be sure the driver is on his mobile. People have handsets but they don’t use them. Personally speaking, we should not wait for effective legislation but start enforcing conservation in our lives.

We should begin with children; teach them, make them aware about the necessity of saving rather than wasting resources. It is too much to hope that their books will have chapters on such things as conservation, but what is stopping us from doing it at homes and workplaces? When most of us will be unable to pass a light switch without putting it off, stop or fix a leaking tap or a leaking gas connection, use lights, fans whatever only when needed, we could make a huge difference. The question is how do you mobilise public opinion when the majority of us believe that whatever we say or do has the least impact and mostly no impact on anything? That’s our catch-22 and one we have to face up to because it’s not going to go away.

The writer is a Lahore-based columnist. Email: masoodhasan66@gmail.com