KARACHI: The Sindh government on Thursday started the process of resettlement by handing over newly-built pucca houses in a model village to the families displaced by mining activities in Thar coalfield block-II.

In the first phase, 36 families were given possession of residential units in the ‘New Senhri Dars Resettlement’ village where each house was built over 1,100 square yards with three bedrooms, washroom, kitchen, sitting areas for men and women, traditional chounra (a straw-made hut), a guestroom and an animal yard. Each house is solar-powered along with main grid connection.

In the model village, 172 pucca houses were being built which would be completed by March 2019. Besides the pucca houses, the model village would be comprising a triple-storey school for 1,000 students, a market of 10 shops, separate community centres for men and women, two reverse osmosis plants to provide uninterrupted supply of clean drinking water, mosque, temple and Gauchar (pasture) area spread over 850 acres.

Congratulating the new settlers, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said: “The shifting of the affected families to the new houses has turned the displaced people of Thar coalfield into partners of the government.”

Earlier, each affected family displaced from the Thar coal block-II project was given Rs10,000 grant from one-off Rs950 million grant, which was approved to compensate the Thar coal project victims during the meeting held to review the water and rehabilitation schemes under way in the Tharparkar district.

In the meeting it was decided that the provincial government would pay Rs10,000 to residents who lost their homes. “We have decided to support them (the affected families) financially in addition to providing them a well-designed and well-constructed house in a township with all basic facilities such as kitchen, washrooms, corridor, veranda and courtyard where they have been given a lawn and two neem trees and more than two jobs for each affected family,” the chief minister was quoted as saying.

Mosques, mandirs, hospitals and schools would also be built near the residential areas and the government would ensure that the people of Thar were taken care of, said the chief minister.

Sindh Minister for Energy Imtiaz Ahmed Sheikh briefed the chief minister during the meeting that 60 houses had already been built, while others were under construction.

The project is spread over 9,000 kilometres and comprises 12 blocks.

The chief minister said that block-II’s relief scheme would be replicated in other blocks where residents had been displaced.

The chief minister announced on the occasion that Rs2.5 billion royalty that would be generated from the coal projects would be spent solely on the development of Thar and its residents and vowed to turn the area into “one of the most prosperous cities of the world”.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2018