ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced an over $197 million project to solarize 27,000 tubewells in the country’s southwestern Balochistan province, an arid region with occasional rainfall which is one of the country’s most economically backward.
The announcement, that Sharif described as “historic,” came during the premier’s one-day visit to Balochistan’s provincial capital of Quetta where he held separate meetings with the governor and chief minister to discuss power cuts and security threats, among other issues.
Constituting almost 44 percent of the country’s total land mass, Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan, with a population of around 12 million people. The region is also one of Pakistan’s poorest and battles poor security, rugged terrain, an unreliable water supply and restricted employment opportunities.
Despite being water scarce, agriculture and livestock remain the major sources of income for the majority of the highly dispersed population.
“Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif announces historic launch of solarization of all agricultural tube wells of Baluchistan,” the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said in a statement.
“27,000 tubewells that run on electricity, their electric connections will be terminated and they [farmers] will be provided solar connections.”
In the last ten years, Sharif told members of the Balochistan cabinet, the federal government had paid Rs500 billion ($1.8 billion) in electricity bills for Balochistan’s tubewells, lamenting that the center had to pay the hefty subsidies as the provincial government could not afford to pay the exorbitant bills:
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (right) meets Chief Minister of Balochistan, Sarfraz Bugti, in Quetta, Pakistan on July 8, 2024. (PID)
“When these tubewells are run on solar energy, the [average] farmer will provide water to his land to make it fertile. And the electricity that is generated from solar power is very cheap, it is the cheapest in the world.”
The Pakistani prime minister said the tubewell project would cost around $197 million, of which the center would pay 70 percent while the remaining would be paid by the Balochistan government.
Balochistan is also plagued by planned power cuts, known as loadshedding, that happen frequently due to fuel shortages and vary in length in different areas. In Balochistan, power outages are prolonged due to both electricity production deficits and unpaid bills by consumers that affect entire neighborhoods. Last week, hundreds of people in one of Pakistan’s hottest cities, Sibi in Balochistan, stormed a power station in protest against cuts lasting up to 20 hours a day.
The province was one of the worst hit by 2022 floods, killing 336 people out of around 1,700 who died nationwide. More than 500,000 heads of livestock perished as a consequence of the floods, at least 17,500 houses were destroyed, another 43,900 houses partially damaged and 1,230 km2 (304,000 acres) of crops lost.
