We have constantly been hearing about the Thatparkar region in media for the last decade or so especially after the emergence of the electronic media. The news about the miseries of the Tharies used to appear in print earlier, especially in the Sindhi newspapers but its rhetoric was limited to the corridors and boundaries of Sindh only.
The miseries of the Thari children, their malnutrition, deaths in winter, RO’s being installed and their nonfunctioning; the role of the NGO’s going out there to help them has always been the headlines of the media; A fresh new breeze of hope hope has emerged in Islamkot Thar which despite facing opposition by some locals is the future of the one of most and backward areas of Pakistan.
My fellow editors and members of the CPNE were invited to visit the under construction coal plants being built by SECMC a company created by Engro. This project is a consortium of Pakistani Banks, Govt of Sindh Engro, and is mainly funded by CPEC.
My friends and I; Maqsood Yousfi, Dr Jabbar, Ijaul Haq, G N Chandia, A R Mangrio, Shaheen Qureshi, Bashir Memon and many other distinguished editors, mostly from the Sindhi media went on an informative tour of the region to personally see and observe the developments arising in the region; the reservations of the general public living around the mining and the plant area .
The Sindh government in the 80’s had managed a survey of the area in a bid to discover drinkable water for the inhabitants of the region which has always been their main requirement. SAZDA, the organization searching for water discovered much more than its desires. To their surprise only 150 meters below the earth lay one of the biggest reserves of black gold which was later asserted to be 175 billion tons of coal.
Pakistan’s biggest tragedy is that we have never benefited from the vast natural gifts been awarded to us. We have huge reserves of gold, copper and other minerals in Baluchistan but due to the past policies of our rulers specially the military dictators we cannot benefit from them.
To Pakistans and Tharparkars luck, Engro chose to benefit from the vast reserves of coal in the area. When the CEO of Engro, Shamusuddin Sheikh took 20 minutes of time from the Prime Minister for the presentation, it got him so interested that he took two hours to fully understand the whole phenomena and got it perused and included in the CPEC .
In 2014, the Thar coal project was included in China Pakistan Economic corridor as one of the early harvest projects. Basically, there are two companies who are jointly working, with Engro. One is excavating coal and the other is building two power plants of 330 MW each estimated to start producing electricity much before June 2019, its proposed production time.
The current mining is being carried out on block no 11 of the huge reserves which have been divided into 12 blocks. The coal reserves in this block are spread around a hundred kilometers radius and are only 1 percent of the total reserves. The reserves in block 11 are enough to produce 5000 MV for the next 50 years, just image the kind of energy output we have been given within and we have been running around after IPP’s to produce Electric by furnace oil and other measures. The current international price of coal is around 4.3 USD/MMBTU. At the starting of the project the price of coal would be around 6.3 which will accordingly reduce to 3.2 by Dec 2021 and will further go down to 2.7 by Dec 2029 making us a viable exporter of the commodity at that time. The more we expedite it the cheaper it would become and would have the same impact on the price of electricity.
SECMC would be producing its electricity at 11,6 cents/ kwh in June of 2019 and it would substantially be reduced to 9 cents by 20/21 and ultimately to 5.6 cents by 2030 , which is very close to the production price of hydel electric .
The biggest concern of the visiting editors and the environmentalists is the impact that the project will create on nature. It was explained to us that the main ingredient, ash which is the basic factor creating environmental disasters would be reinstated into the same area from where the coal would be evacuated. We were explained about this through different reports and charts prepared by the international organizations that our coal is probably not the best but is much superior to the coal being used by many countries of the region. The ash and sulfur in our coal is much less to the one being used in India but is a little better in quality being evacuated in Germany. We were explained that Japan and Germany have a clean environment even though they both have 21 and 17, coal based power plants producing electricity currently. These results can be achieved by using the best kind of equipment for the purposes and Engro has also imported the boiler of the plant from Europe despite the fact that the other parts of the plant are Chinese made.
The greatest achievement about this project is that the Tharies are the biggest beneficiaries of the whole venture. Out of the total work force of 1,698 at the mining site 63% are Tharies. A vocational training center has been created outside the plant to train the local population in order for them to be bifacial to the project. The schools being run in the area have been taken over the company and have been handed over to a Karachi based NGO so that proper education is being given to locals, in addition to that, TCF has also been invited and been provided with land and resources by the company to come in and open three additional schools in the area the first would be operational by April 2017. A hundred bed hospital has also been planned for the area which has to be built and run by the Indus Foundation a reputable name in the field.
Health, education, employment and living facilities are the four basic requirements for a healthy community. The villages of Senhri Das and Thario Halepoto are being relocated for mining purposes. They are being provided with new villages with marvelous homes being constructed on a 1100 sq yard plot each. The proposed houses were so attractive that many of the members of the delegation wished if they could also be accommodated in the village with has all those facilities.
Some of the villagers which are around 40 kilometers away from the project had concerns regarding a dam being built in their area. The dam is being built to store water which will been evacuated out of the mine. The water will only be stored in the dams for a short period because later all the water being taken out would be reutilized in the power plant itself. The villagers believe that the water coming out would seriously damage their fodder area essential for their herds which is their bread and butter. The delegation visited Islamkot Press Club and met the people sitting there in protest for their demands. Their concerns were later presented to the administration which is trying its level best to find out the solution of the issue which is more politicized then genuine in nature. What the delegation concluded in general was that the dam issue is not that great a concern and would probably not damage the environment or the habitants.
Many international companies are eyeing the region after seeing the huge benefits the pioneer power plants would achieve.
The two vibrant officers Shamusddin Sheikh and Brig (r) Tariq Lakheer are the back bones of the project and the basic reason for their success is not only their attitude and commitment but being Sindhis as well. They have a terrific working relationship with the people of the area.