Together with environmental implications, agriculture has
emerged as focal area of national economic growth in Pakistan
and has the potential for addressing unemployment. Due its
higher employment elasticity than industry, agriculture sector has
emerged as the largest sector of Pakistan’s economy and needs
more assured supplies of energy and better energy inputs to attain
self-sufficiency in food and to generate more foreign earnings
through exports. The rural population has only marginal access to
electricity for lighting, water heating and cooking. Poor energy supplies
also constrain productivity growth in the agricultural sector.
The level of primary energy consumption in Pakistan is very low.
The present per capita commercial energy consumption is around
0.25 Tons of Oil Equivalent (TOE) and per capita electricity consumption
is 350 kWh. This corresponds to about half the average for
developing countries, one-seventh of the world average and onetwentieth
of the average for the industrialized developed countries
[8].