Joint venture: Punjab chambers to invest in Thar coal project

Will formulate a syndicate to cope with energy crisis.

SIALKOT:

Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) and the Punjab business community agreed to formulate a joint Punjab businessmen consortium to jointly invest in the Thar coal project to cope with looming energy crisis.

They made this joint announcement after an important meeting held at the SCCI auditorium on Saturday. Science and Technology Planning Commission of Pakistan Member Dr Samar Mubarakmand graced the occasion as a chief guest.

SCCI President Naeem Anwar Qureshi chaired the meeting, while the presidents of Punjab chambers of commerce and industry attended the meeting.

Qureshi said “All the chambers of commerce and industry in Punjab will formulate a Punjab business consortium to jointly invest in the Thar coal project, which would be helpful in producing cheaper gas, electricity, diesel, methanol and fertilisers in the country, besides enabling the Punjab business community to curb the menace of prolonged energy crisis in the country”.

Attendees at the meeting extended their full moral and financial support to Dr Samar Mubarakmand for completing all the projects of alternative energy promotion, lying incomplete due to paucity of funds.

Mubarakmand said that the country was in dire need of promoting alternative energy resources to get rid of the energy crisis. He asked the Punjab business community to come forward and invest in the Thar coal project, saying that there were profitable opportunities of private investment in this project, as foreign investors were already lined up to cash on the project.

He alleged that the Thar Coal Energy Board was adopting delaying tactics and creating hurdles in the way of private investments in this project.

Mubarakmand disclosed that the project of establishing a 100 megawatt Thar coal project had been lying incomplete due to insufficient funds, adding that total cost of the project was $115.6 million out of which the federal government had yet provided $10.9 million.

They vowed to take effective measures on emergency grounds to pull the Pakistani industries from persisting crises.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 8^th, 2012.