June 20, 2008	Friday	Jamadi-us-Sani 15, 1429

RAWALPINDI, June 19: Although there is uncertainty and law and order situation in certain areas of the NWFP and Balochistan, the government plans to carry out major mining projects during the next fiscal year for exploration of minerals, official sources told Dawn.

Under the annual plan for 2008-09, an allocation of Rs221.9 million has been made for mineral sector, and major projects to be carried out include feasibility study of gasification of Thar coal, national coal policy, exploration and evaluation of coal fields of Chamiang-Bala Dhaka, Bahlol and parts of Ghazi Basin in Balochistan and establishment of a project monitoring and evaluation cell.

Statistics show that only 37 per cent of the country is geologically mapped to a scale of 1:50,000 while geophysical surveys of gravity and magnetic have even less coverage at 21 per cent of the total area. Adequate institutional, human, research and development and other relevant infrastructure exists but remains under-utilised.

Despite the fact that Pakistan is blessed with rich and diversified mineral potential, the government was still nurturing environment to build the mineral sector as a potent factor in the national economy.

Considering that its development is inadequate and slow because of the nature of mineral industry being extra-ordinary complex and complicated and other technical, financial and organisational problems, necessary steps would be taken for their resolution and rectification.

However, the national mineral policy announced in 1995 has become outdated after more than a decade and there is a need for bringing improvements with a view to making it more investment friendly.

The government has already declared development of mining industry as priority sector but progress so far remains slow in monitoring and implementation.

In the meantime, a mega project near Saindak, namely Reko Dik copper-gold project in Balochistan, would be launched by the world’s largest copper and gold producing company with an investment of one billion dollars by 2010 to produce 0.3 million tons of copper annually, thus bringing Pakistan for the first time on the world map as a major copper producing country.

In the same vein, Duddar lead-zinc deposits in Balochistan are being developed and are expected to come in production by the end of 2008 to produce 100,000 tons of zinc concentrates and 33,000 tons of lead concentrates for export.

Similarly, development of Thar Coal field in Sindh containing 175 billion tons, one of the largest good quality lignite deposits in the world, on completion would be used for power generation and gasification.