Access to Power: Governance and Development in the Pakistani Electrical Power Sector
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Access to Power: Governance and Development in the Pakistani Electrical Power Sector Ijlal Naqvi A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Sociology. Chapel Hill 2011 Approved by: Charles Kurzman Ayesha Jalal Margarita Mooney Andrew Perrin John Stephens Abstract IJLAL NAQVI: Access to Power: Governance and Development in the Pakistani Electrical Power Sector (Under the direction of Charles Kurzman) This dissertation explores governance in Pakistan through a study of the state-run electrical power sector. At both the micro and macro level, the Pakistani power sector provides a lens into the heart of the Pakistani state and its governance institutions. This ethnographic and historical study offers an in-depth look at state operations in a developing country, situates the current Pakistani power crisis in a larger context of continuity through periods of dictatorship and democracy, and suggests how efforts to make state service delivery more responsive to citizens might be reconceived. A historical review of the Pakistani power sector establishes first and foremost that the current crisis is the product of longer-term processes for which the policy solutions currently being proposed (with the support of international donors and multilateral lenders) are inadequate. Depoliticized attempts at power sector reform have little to offer in light of the pervasively informal and negotiated nature of the fragmented Pakistani state. The institutions of power sector governance are mutually constituted by the formal rules and the informal - personal relationships, language, violence, money, and power. These rules of the game are as relevant to relations within and between public sector organizations as they are to the engagement of citizens with their state. The same rules apply at the margins of the state – informal squatter settlements – as at the core, though the resources brought to bear and the resultant outcomes are different. ii The internal incoherence of this state underscores the limitations of formal rules in determining outcomes, and the poor prospects for reform efforts that focus exclusively on the formal aspects of governance. To proactively engage with the question of political will leads away from top-down policy perspectives and counter to the depoliticizing tendencies that currently shape policy reforms. Instead, an energized and informed local participation can be a counterweight to the inertial tendencies of a Pakistani state whose reforms tend to be co-opted by existing power centers rather than result in changed outcomes. iii To my parents, Leylac, and Sofi. iv Acknowledgements Completing this dissertation would not have been possible on my own, though all remaining faults are my sole responsibility. I will always remain grateful to Charlie Kurzman for his mentorship and support. Charlie’s fundamental decency and endless good humor and generosity have helped sustain this research and bring it to a successful conclusion. Charlie combines a meticulous eye for detail with a powerful insistence on asking big questions. I am also grateful to the members of my dissertation committee – Ayesha Jalal, Margarita Mooney, Andy Perrin, and John Stephens – for their receptiveness to my unorthodox research plans and promptings to sharpen and refine my work. The UNC Sociology department, the UNC Graduate School, and a research assistantship on a grant from the United States Institute for Peace funded my initial years of graduate school at UNC. The Friday Center for Continuing Education at UNC kindly allowed me to teach online while outside the US, and Pam Stokes at UNC’s sociology department helped me stay on the right side of university requirements while I was 10,000 miles away. I thank the Lahore University of Management Sciences and Quaid-e-Azam University for being my academic homes away from UNC at different points during my fieldwork. Advanced Engineering Associates International gave me the flexibility I needed to finish my writing while I worked for them in Pakistan. My colleagues at AEAI were always open to v sharing their immense experience of the Pakistani power sector, from which I benefitted greatly. I am grateful to the Pakistani public servants who allowed me into their worlds for a while, particularly to the employees of the Islamabad and Lahore Electric Supply Companies. I cannot name them or identify the locations, but I thank them for entertaining my questions and tolerating my enquiries. So much of what I’ve written describes a broken system which doesn’t serve Pakistanis well, but I also want to note the constraints that employees of the electric utilities work under and acknowledge that they routinely work outside the bounds of their duties and under dangerous conditions to keep this under- resourced system running as best they can. Several friends were kind enough to read and comment on drafts of different chapters, particularly Aasim Akhtar, Munir Ahmad, and Dan Haines. The Democracy, Governance and Development conference at Oxford introduced me to a network of like- minded researchers around the world who provided valuable feedback. My parents and family believed in my work and always let me know it. They made the good times better, and reminded me of what is truly important. One of my father’s favorite pieces of recent music is Saeein Zahoor singing Bulleh Shah’s Aik Alif, which opens with the line “You studied to become knowledgeable/ But you never studied yourself” (Parh parh ilm te faazil hoya/ Te kaday apnay aap nu parhya na). This dissertation makes an academic contribution, but the journey taught me far more. vi My daughter Sofi won’t remember this time, but I’m glad that finishing means that she can play with her Dad instead of see him working all the time. Most of all, Leylac’s love and support kept me whole and saw me through this Ph.D. This is your achievement as much as mine. vii Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. v List of Tables ........................................................................................................................... xii List of Figures ......................................................................................................................... xiii List of Abbreviations .............................................................................................................. xiv 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Basic Facts about Power in South Asia .................................................................................... 6 1.2 Conceptualization of the State .............................................................................................. 10 1.3 Methods and Fieldwork ......................................................................................................... 14 1.3.1 Case Selection: Islamabad .............................................................................................. 15 1.3.2 Fieldwork and Interviews ............................................................................................... 15 2 The Silences of Development Discourse in Pakistani Power Planning, 1955-2011 ......... 25 2.1 The Recognition of the problem ........................................................................................... 27 2.2 A Persistent Diagnosis .......................................................................................................... 28 2.2.1 Fuel Mix and Cost of Imports ........................................................................................ 28 2.2.2 Capacity Constraints ...................................................................................................... 31 2.2.3 Transmission and Distribution Losses ........................................................................... 40 viii 2.3 A Fixed Repertoire of Actions ............................................................................................... 42 2.3.1 The Natural Gas Reserves of Balochistan ...................................................................... 43 2.3.2 Gomal Zam Multi-Purpose Hydroelectric Dam ............................................................. 45 2.3.3 Independent Power Producers ..................................................................................... 48 2.3.4 Structural Change .......................................................................................................... 60 2.4 Silences of Development Discourse on the Politics of Power Sector Reform ....................... 65 2.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 69 3 Institutions, Culture and Governance: Get Yourself Connected ...................................... 72 3.1 Synthesizing Academic Literatures on Institutions, Culture and Governance ....................... 73 3.2 Introducing the Case ............................................................................................................. 82 3.3 Personal Touch .....................................................................................................................