Sixty-five-year-old Muhammad Arif, a resident of Gilgit city, has been working as a tailor in a rented shop in front of Madina Market for the last many years. He says he stitches three suits a day during the summers and earns Rs2,000, which helps his family make ends meet.

“But winters are the real trial for me and my family. During the day, electricity is available for only a couple of hours during the whole day and stitching one suit takes two or three days.”

He says that during the power outages, he just darns clothes or hand stitching and uses an iron that runs on expensive coal and takes half an hour to heat up.

“Despite working hard all day in the winter, I earn only Rs500 to Rs1,000, making it difficult even to buy tea and fuel for the stove at home.”

Muhammad Arif has no choice but Muhammad Naeem’s ancestral village is in Rawalpindi. He makes panaflexes there and in the winters, he does not work and goes back home. “In the severe cold, it’s difficult to stay at the workplace in the north without electricity,” he declares.

 The population of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) is approximately 1.8m. In winters, labourers from here head to bigger cities like Rawalpindi and Karachi for work while wealthier people also leave for Islamabad due to electricity issues.

High electricity demand, less production 

According to the Auditor General of Pakistan’s report 2022-23, the total installed electricity generation capacity in GB is 215.9MW, of which 187.3MW is hydroelectric and 28.65MW is thermal. However, in summers, production never exceeds 120.65MW, and in winters, it remains at 90.43MW.

According to May 2023 statistics, the province required 254.82MW of electricity in summers and 452.19MW in winters, meaning there is a shortfall of 134.17MW in summers and 361.76MW in winters.

Shakir Ali, the executive engineer (EXEN) of the Electricity Department, admits that due to this significant seasonal variation between demand and supply, loadshedding of 20 hours occurs in the summers. There is so much load during the supply hours that outages have to be carried out in phases. GB’s electricity mainly depends on hydropower, with 75 small plants in the province (having 187MW capacity). These plants are installed on mountain streams where water flow drastically reduces in the winter and their output drops to one-third of their capacity.

The 18MW hydropower plant at Naltar Valley, a tourist destination in Gilgit, is an example where production drops to 9MW in November and 6MW in March. Similarly, another plant of 14MW also supplies less than 6MW in the winter.

The output from all hydropower stations in Chilas, Skardu, Hunza, and other areas is at its lowest level in March, which is the main reason of the power shortfall.

Diesel generators are little help 

At the start of this year, people in the Hunza Valley launched a protest against the power shortage. The protesters, including women and children, kept the Karakoram Highway blocked for six days. 

For emergency needs, 24 thermal stations or diesel generators with a total capacity of 28.5MW are installed in various cities and towns of GB. In response to the protests, it was decided to run diesel generators in the urban areas of Hunza, Skardu, Gilgit, and Chilas to extend the electricity supply by five hours. For fuel, the federal government approved Rs480m.

 According to official records, six 4MW generators in Skardu consumed diesel worth more than Rs17.4m in one month (January). Chilas faced a similar situation where four to five hours of electricity were provided.

 Hameed Hussain, the superintendent engineer of the electricity department, explains that the 7MW diesel generators in Gilgit city run in the evenings which reduced the 20-hour loadshedding by just 25 minutes. 

“We have recommended to the government to disconnect the generator supply in Gilgit because it consumes diesel worth Rs26m daily for just 25 minutes of electricity. 

However, Amir Shehzad, the EXEN at Nagar, says that the supply of electricity from generators in the Sas Valley near Nagar is inevitable because the temperature there remains below the freezing point.

Fears for GB’s glaciers and environment

Environmental experts severely criticise the government’s decision to use diesel generators for electricity production in GB. Dr Ejaz Ahmad, an environmentalist and senior research fellow at the Institute of Urbanism, says the GB has the potential to produce over 40,000MW of hydropower.

“But, we are using diesel generators here, which not only waste financial resources but are also extremely dangerous for the environment.”

He argues that Gilgit-Baltistan is home to glaciers and the smoke from diesel generators always travels toward cold areas, which means that the smoke from the generators directly settles on the glaciers, speeding up their melting process. 

“Everyone knows that melting glaciers form lakes here and hill torrents cause widespread devastation.”

Sanaullah, the secretary of Water and Power Department, GB, admits that diesel generators are not environment-friendly. However, he insists that the ‘canopy mounted generators’ of Jaffer Brothers have been installed, which absorb more carbon.

But Dr Ejaz Ahmad disagrees with Sanaullah’s view, saying that no matter how good the generator is, it is toxic for the environment. Even a slight malfunction can cause it to release harmful smoke. “Moreover, diesel comes from Karachi, and this thousand-kilometer journey itself causes pollution.”

Why not solar and wind energy?

In response to this question, Muhammad Arif, the tailor, says that he doesn’t even have enough savings to set up a solar system. 

“But the real truth is, when the government electricity costs Rs3 per unit, why would one spend on renewable energy?”

In GB, domestic consumers are charged the same rate of Rs3 per unit for up to 100 units. The Auditor General’s report indicates that between 2015 and 2022, the government suffered a loss of over Rs29bn in GB’s power sector due to underutilization of hydropower plants, electricity theft, line losses, subsidies, etc. The cost of electricity generation is Rs17.86 per unit while the selling price is Rs5.5 per unit for domestic consumers and Rs7.5 for commercial consumers.

Experts believe that if the government had spent this amount on alternative energy sources in the past, there would be no electricity outages and no need for diesel generators today that pollute the environment.

However, the secretary of electricity claims that the federal government has approved 100MW of solar power for Gilgit and the project would be completed by November. Under this project, rooftop panels would be installed at all government buildings. Additionally, several pending hydropower projects will be completed by next winter.

Special Assistant to GB CM on Information Eiman Shah explains that the electricity shortage issue has been ongoing for a long time because the GB government didn’t have legislative powers related to energy until 2018. The 16MW project at Naltar was delayed for 12 years for the same reason, but now it will be completed by June. Other hydro projects are also under construction, he says and adds.

“We were forced to run diesel generators due to public protests. We had no other choice.”