CM promises new homes for people displaced by coal mining projects

Hastens to add that it will take some time, asks people of Thar to exercise patience

PHOTO: Reuters

HYDERABAD:
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has assured that people who would be dislocated due to coal mining and power generation projects in Tharparkar would be given alternative homes. "But we request them to have little patience as we go through this phase of development," he said after inaugurating the Salam Pakistan Thar culture festival along with Director General Sindh Rangers Maj Gen Umar Bukhari in Mithi, Tharparkar, on Saturday.

The event featured horse race, camel dance, dog show, traditional wrestling called malakhra, helicopter paragliding, a display of martial arts skills by students of the Thar Foundation. It was organised by Sindh Rangers in collaboration with Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC), Thar Foundation and Shanghai Electric. Shah dedicated the festival to the folk singers Mai Bhagi, Sadiq Faqeer and others who hailed from Tharparkar and announced that his government's culture department will also organise a similar festival in Thar in February.

The CM referred to the model village set up by SECMC in Thar coal block II and said the displaced people in the other blocks would be inhabited in similar villages. "Whatever promises we made to the people living in the block II, we fulfilled them. We will also fulfill our promises made to the people living in other blocks."

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He advised the people of Tharparkar to opt for resettlement in new homes in order to secure the future of their children instead of selling their homes. He said that the Sindh government would begin to receive a royalty of the Thar coal project from June 2020, adding that the royalty would be spent on Tharparkar's development through the NGO Thar Foundation. coal

He expressed hope that the coal-powered electricity would not only meet the national requirements in the future but would also be exported. "Thari people will become prosperous in the next few years."

He assured that the young people of Thar would operate the coal mining and power generation projects, among others, in the years to come.


The CM announced that Thar coal blocks I and II would together start to contribute 3,000 megawatt electricity to the national grid from 2021. Hitherto, he added, two power plants of 330 MW each, owned and operated by Engro Powergen Thar Limited, have been supplying some three billion units of electricity to the grid.

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Shah said the Sindh government is paying the electricity bills of up to 200 units of the people of Islamkot taluka. A campus of NED university has been set up in Mithi taluka while 350 acres of land has been allocated for another university in Islamkot, he said.

He also credited the government for providing communication facilities in the desert by constructing roads and an airport in Islamkot.

He said around 40% of the district's population is Hindu which lived in harmony with the Thari Muslims.

The CM expressed hope that not only Thar would bolster the economy of Pakistan it would also be known as a place of peace and religious harmony in the future.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 5th, 2020.
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