What is the reason that even in the 21st century, there is no electricity in and around the Pashtun area and people here are still struggling with shortage of electricity in this scorching heat?

Answer 1 : User : Rafiullah Dawar      

You are right, these days the temperature goes over 55 degrees. KPK barely needs over 200 MW of electricity but the production is of 6000 MW electricity. Unfortunately, even the excess of electricity is not provided to us.

Yesterday, the Chief Minister of Punjab has announced to give 100 units of electricity free to the people of Punjab.

This double treatment with Pashtuns is happening not from today but for past 70 years. For extensive information, let me tell you how much electricity is generated from which dam.

 1- Allai Khwar dam

The total electricity generation capacity of the Allai Khwar Plant in Batgram district is 121 MW. Construction of Khan Khwar Hydropower Plant was commenced in January 2005 and the project was completed in March 2013. Power House is in commercial operation since 25 March 2010. The project was officially inaugurated on 4 March 2013 by then President of Pakistan

Stating the fact, Batgram district’s total demand of electricity is not more than 20 MW But still the district only gets ten hours of electricity in 24 hours.
 

2: Tarbella dam:
    The installed capacity of the 4,888 MW Tarbela hydroelectric power stations will increase to 6,298 MW after completion of the planned fifth extension financed by Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the World Bank.

Stating the fact, most of all the Electricity of Pakistan is generated from the land of Pashtuns. But again sadly the villages that are connected to this dam still live under darkness i.e., without electricity. Despite the fact that entire Pakhtunkhwa only needs 100 MW of electricity.

Answer 2 :User : Mumeed Melkavi

Both Pakistan and Afghanistan, where most of the Pashtun people live are poor backward countries with Afghanistan being one of the worlds poorest — electricity requires money: infrastructure, distribution, billing, paying customers, collection, etc.

Further Pakistan and Afghanistan also have not reformed their electric and power laws and markets which deprive their populations from taking advantage of similar arrangements in more reformed markets. For example Pakistan is still largely a single buyer system (PEPCO.)

This is further complicated by the fact that a lot of Pashtun areas such as the erstwhile FATA areas of Pakistan and all of Pashtun areas of Afghanistan have very challenging topography and are sparsely populated and have high levels of poverty. What that means is delivering:

    It costs a lot to deliver electricity since you have to tackle challenging terrain, you are far away from the area of electricity generation and then the customers are not located close together as in urban areas.
    Further you have poor customers who cannot pay market prices and who if they default will be hard to collect on.

Even if you go to developed countries like the US and Canada, remote communities are not supplied by the national or local electric grids for the same reasons because it does not make economic sense. On the other hand major cities, like New York, San Franciso have rich paying customers who are clustered closer together and thus you have electric utilities competing to provide them with service.

Electricity is not a right it is a privilege.