05 December 2004	Sunday	22 Shawwal 1425

KARACHI, Dec 4: The Sindh government has opposed the proposal of constituting a coal board and establishing coal mining and power generation company or any of the two by pointing out that besides Chinese company M/s Shenhua Group working at Thar Coal project many other foreign companies have shown interest to invest in Sonda coal field.

This was stated by Provincial Minister for Mines and Mineral Development Irfanullah Khan Marwat while talking to Dawn on Saturday.

Mr Marwat said that the proposal for constituting coal board and setting up coal mining and power generation company with joint venture of Sindh Coal Authority, federal government and an international company was floated at the last meeting, summoned by the planning commission. He said there appeared no point to make another agency for exploiting the coal and mineral resources in the province, as already three agencies were working to get permission for installing power generation units in the country.

He said there was a need for window operation to attract investors but by adding another company to already three agencies for finalizing the power generation permission would result in discouraging the investors.

According to the proposal, floated by the planning commission, a joint venture of Sindh Coal Authority, federal government and an international company was to be established. This proposal has been floated in view of the increasing interest of different firms from various countries including China, Hong Kong, Australia, the UAE and consortium led by a Polish firm.

The Sindh government had already signed MoUs with some of the companies for the purpose and four companies had started working at Thar Coal Project to generate 7,000 mega watt power plant. They are M/S RWE from Germany, which was working to generate 1,000mw power with total investment of 2.3 billion euros, M/S Beneway Corporation from the USA to generate 2,000mw with investment of 3.5 billion dollars, M/S Lion Group of Companies from Australia to generate 2,000mw with 3.5 billion dollars and M/S I.K. International Company Ltd from Korea to generate 2,000mw power generation plant with total investment of 3.5 billion dollars.

According to insiders, setting up another agency to deal with coming investors would not only result in red tapes as any investor would have to do further paper work which could delay in execution of the project. The sources said that the Thar Coal project was already delayed, as rates and other formalities had not been finalized by the relevant agencies at federal level.