I am not a statistician, and certainly no rocket scientist. An ordinary citizen of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the loadshedding is hurting me just like everybody else in this country. So as we are all fed inflow and outflow numbers of water day in and day out, I have asked the questions that seem common sense. For the last eight weeks, the water levels in major dams have been near dead level. The four-figure number of power shortage is going up almost every passing week. Fair enough We do not control the river flows. But snow on the mountains would start melting now as it is almost mid-April (of a very early arrived summer). If I remember correctly, we had a terribly hot summer in 2009 which was aggravated in July to September period by carrying out repairs of Mangla transmission lines. Now can anybody remind me how long did these repairs last? Furthermore, the power plants running on gas were repaired in winter 2009-2010. I think a few weeks, say eight or ten at the most, should have been long enough and in any case, they should have foreseen and rectified any technical problems in advance. Why do we have a problem now? -DR FAHEEM AKHTAR, Lahore, April 9.