ISLAMABAD: Patron Islamabad Chamber of Small Traders Shahid Rasheed Butt on Sunday called for renewed efforts to generate electricity which was key to economic revival and poverty reduction.
He said that government was seriously perusing agenda to overcome energy crisis but the pace of work on critical power generation projects should be increased, said a press release here.
Shahid Rasheed Butt said that government must promote private investments in the energy sector by introducing better regulations otherwise efforts to reduce poverty would remain counterproductive.
Access to energy was imperative to transform lives as majority of Pakistanis as well as a third of the world’s population had no access to modern energy services, he said.
He said that tens of millions in Pakistanis and 1.3 billion people worldwide were still without any form of electricity and 2.7 billion people still cook over open fires despite availability of solutions.
Estimates say in the next sixteen years, three billion will cook with traditional fuels, more than 30 million people will die due to smoke-related diseases and hundreds of millions will be confined to poverty due to lack of
energy, he informed. an average 70 per cent are women who spend significant time and money to obtain energy that was not only unpredictable, expensive, unsafe, and highly polluting, he said.
The veteran business leader said that lack of access to electricity also prevented the development of key social programmes like education, health, sanitation and provision of clean drinking water, continuing a cycle of poverty that was very difficult to break.
He said that energy was vital to escape poverty but unfortunately lack of interest by policymakers had left a third of the world’s population with no access to modern energy services.
A dollar invested in a solar energy generates more than $46 in economic benefits in the first year alone, he underlined.
He said that energy enabled people to work their way out of poverty, it provides better access to basic services while improving health and wellbeing of everyone, especially that of women and children.
