Afghanistan Times
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Residents of the capital city, Kabul, have been suffering from the shortage of the electricity power for a couple of months and just prior to the cold weather of winter.
Although there is not any official justification for the shortage, but unofficial reports say that the surge in use of the electricity for heating homes and water, has made the power department to cut it during the days. They say that there is not enough electricity to supply to the nearly six million residents of Kabul round the clock.
The domestic power generators produce only a little part of the electricity needed for the capital city and the most part is imported from the neighboring countries such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan who supply power to the northern provinces on the route of the cables that reach to Kabul.
Also, the government imports electricity from Iran and Turkmenistan that is consumed in the western provinces.
The power has got long shortage particularly in the capital city. The power dams were attacked and cables were cut in the 1980s and 1990s as part of the war against the then governments.
The current government system that has been established to reconstruct the damages of the war years, has not done enough in this key issue either.
The government has unfortunately failed to reactivate the existing power stations and build new dams for the production despite pouring billions of dollars of the international donation for the reconstruction.
The government had to buy electricity from outside to apparently make people calm and enlighten houses, offices and factories. But this is not a basic work, and reminds people of the years of war. They still use the enlightening tools that they used twenty years ago and other nations did before the industrial revolution.
Millions of dollars are going out annually to pay for the power bill to the neighboring countries and people enjoy it only for a few hours each day.
Those running small factories around the country, frequently complain of the electricity shortage that damages their work and prevents the economic growth. This is while the statesmen demand domestic and foreign investment.
How is it possible to run economic wheel when we are deprived of electricity in the 21st century that is impossible to live without electricity?
Regretfully, we have to suffer this problem in addition to scores of other ones like insecurity as sometimes the bad weather and huge avalanches damages the power cables, while some other times, the opposition armed groups cut the cables, leaving people in blackout.
