KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Saturday approved a scheme to declare the people affected by the Thar coal mining project beneficiaries of its future earnings by granting them shares for the next 30 years.

Officials said the CM would distribute shares among more than 1,700 families who had been affected by the coal mining operations in the desert district of Thar next week.

Mr Shah approved this scheme while presiding over a meeting at CM House. Chief secretary Rizwan Memon, chairman of P&D Mohammed Waseem and others attended the meeting.

Officials said the Sindh government along with its partner M/s Engro would celebrate completion of 50 per cent work which would be attended by a large number of investors from the country and abroad, and notables. The ceremony would be held in the mine at block-II.

They said the chief minister would visit Thar to attend the ceremony being organised on Tuesday.

“During the event,” said a senior official in the government, “Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah will distribute shares among the people who have been affected due to coal mining operations in the desert.”

CM to distribute shares in ceremony to be held next week

The CM said: “We have already managed to provide them shelter, a house to each affected family, with all basic facilities of education, health, water and sanitation.”

He added that a mosque and a temple were also being constructed there.

The chief minister said PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had stated that the people of the area must have ownership in the project in the shape of shares.

“The provincial government would reduce its share to give shares to the affected people,” he said.

The officials said the Sindh government owned 54pc shares in the Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC).

Some 1,700 people [families] have been affected by the power plant and coal mining in Thar. Mr Shah said initially those shares would fetch at least Rs100,000 a year to a bearer.

“This amount will increase with the increase in the value of the shares.

“We have provided jobs to the affected families in the SECMC and that included the women of the area,” he said.

“It is for the first time in the history of the country that the people affected by a mega project are being given ownership,” claimed Mr Shah.

“We are doing all things possible for the betterment of the country which we can do [with] whatever resources we have,” said the chief minister adding that Sindh was the country’s richest province in terms of most forms of energy, which included coal, gas, oil, wind and solar energy.

Mr Shah said the Thar coal project was the brainchild of slain prime minister Benazir Bhutto, which would prove a game changer in producing power and jobs for thousands of people.

The chief minister said that the Sindh government was striving hard to mitigate sufferings of the people of Thar.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2017