Waste of Talent

In a world of diminishing energy resources, the world has to turn towards alternate energy sources. The best of these of course being clean energy renewable resources. Over the years, research has been done on subjects like the use of alternative energy sources in Pakistan, but unfortunately, not much has come out of it.

In 1982, a group of students from NED University were assigned a final year project for a "Clean Energy Model Village".

The object was to select a real village and to design different systems from power generation to irrigation water pumping, to rice drying, in order to make the village self-sufficient in the use of alternate energy sources.

The selection criteria had to include factors like critical population size and enough days of sunshine and wind to ensure adequate supply of alternate energy resources.

The students short-listed possible villages that might be suitable as sites for the model village.

Finally, with the assistance of the then chairman of District Council Thatta, Mr. Chandio, village Bohara was selected as the model village.

The students were divided into groups of two to four each and different projects were assigned to each one of these groups. Some of the projects assigned were wind-energy water pumping, biogas heating, solar energy power generation and solar energy rice drying.

The designs were completed along with complete bills of quantity and costing, based on actual market data. The cost of each system was between Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 500,000.

The students who designed these systems have graduated and gone on with their lives, with many of them settled overseas. The designs are gathering dust on the shelves of the project library of the NED University.

Mr. Chandio is no longer with us and the people of Bohara are living their lives in the same condition as twenty years ago.