Prioritizing the Priorities

Prioritizing is about making choices of what to do and what not to do or what should be the first step and what should be the next?

To prioritize effectively you need to be able to recognize what is important, as well as to see the difference between Urgent and Important. The important or high priority tasks are the tasks that help us achieve our long-term goals or can have other meaningful and significant long-term consequences.

Let us analyze the possible priorities of our government. In my view ENERGY should be the top priority of the government because without energy the goals set up by the Government cannot be achieved. Pakistan is one of those countries who are facing severe energy crisis.

There is huge gap between demand and supply of energy resulting into serious economic and social implications. Energy needs of the country are increasing by 9% every year. Economy of Pakistan is suffering set-backs due to lack of power. Industrial sector has to face outages of power resulting into dip in production capability.

Economic growth has been less than required which will lead to rise in unemployment. Furthermore, the cost of the electricity produced has also enhanced the cost of production in addition to reliance upon imported oil for generation of electricity. Many sectors have to face load-shedding for more than 3 days in a week disenabling them to compete in the international market especially the Textile sector.

In this context the Government must draw a crystal clear strategy. In the long term, Hydel power generation must be prioritized. In medium term coal based power generation plants should be encouraged. On the other hand we also can exploit our potential of alternate or renewable energy resources which are available from solar, wind, biomass, biogas, municipal solid waste.