Locals denied employment in Tharparkar coal project, claims district council

SECMC denies claim, says 75% locals employed

HYDERABAD: With complaints of discrimination in employment, Tharparkar district council passed a resolution on Friday and warned Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) of staging protests. The house approved the resolution, tabled by Lala Lajpat Bheel and Mohammed Khan Loond.

The council also expressed concern over the people affected because of the Ghorano reservoir project and threatened the company with a protest if they are not compensated. "The company is behaving like a stepmother with the people of Tharparkar," said Dr Ghulam Hyder Samejo. He warned the company that council will not tolerate this discrimination.

Under the $2 billion coal mining and power production projects in Thar Coal Block II, SECMC plans to generate 660 megawatts of electricity by 2018. They will also supply locally extracted coal to two other power companies that are establishing power plants in Tharparkar.



The project initially faced opposition from a couple of villages near the project site while last year a group of villagers challenged the construction of the reservoir at the Sindh High Court circuit bench in Hyderabad. They alleged that the reservoir, spread over 1,600 acres for salt water storage pumped out from the mining site, will affect their livestock and the environment.

Council members Faqir Raja Bilalani, Kareem Dino Dal, Ashraf Dars, and others alleged that 88% of employees in the management team come from areas outside Tharparkar. They blamed the company for depriving the local youth of jobs and for violating its agreement with the government for giving maximum employment to the local people.

Senator Engineer Gianchand, who attended the session as a guest, said if this discrimination continues then the locals will not get a fair share from the development. He advised SECMC Chief Executive Officer Shamsuddin A Shaikh to attend the council's meeting and address the concerns of the members.



However, a spokesperson of the company, Mohsin Babbar, rejected the council's claim. "We respect the point of view of the elected representatives of the district council of Tharparkar but the house should have done their homework before claiming [discrimination in] the number of jobs provided to the locals,” he complained.

Babbar claimed that no other project in the private sector maintained a balance of local and non-local employees in the management and non-management departments like the SECMC. He said that out of 2,433 employees hired in the last 20 months for the projects related to Thar Coal Block II, 75% hail from Tharparkar. “The company has only hired 19% of its staff from other districts in Sindh and 6% from other provinces,” he added.

He concluded by saying that the company is providing special training programmes to the local people in various skills which are required in coal mining and power generation associated work.