India, Dec. 7 -- For anyone who has followed Pakistan's power sector over the past 20 years, the latest push for new projects feels painfully familiar. Once again, policymakers are reaching for more generation capacity when the real crisis lies elsewhere. The plan to move ahead with the Azad Patan and Kohala hydropower projects and the Gwadar coal-fired plant, adding about 2,100 MW, comes at a time when Pakistan already has surplus electricity on paper. It reflects a pattern-build more plants, avoid hard reforms.

Pakistan's problem today is not lack of megawatts. It is the way those megawatts are managed, moved and paid for. Over the last decade, large projects-many under CPEC-have increased installed capacity. Yet consumers still face h...