KOHAT, Jan 25: The production of coal from mines in Darra Adamkhel, the frontier region of Kohat, has dropped by 50 per cent owing to a dispute between tribal owners and miners over royalty.

The miners were selling 60 truck-loads of coal from about 40 mines, but following the expiry of an interim six-month agreement their share was cut down and the administration had divided the royalty between the tribes and the miners. Since then the miners have slowed down work on mines as a pressure tactic to get their demands met.

Sources said the miners also exploited the tribesmen by taking major chunk of the profit from the coal after paying Rs1,000 per truck to the provincial mineral department and Rs400 per truck to the administration.

Under the agreement, the tribesmen, who own the mines, were to get Rs300 per ton. But they have refused to accept this amount and told the administration that they were now able to run the mines and that all contracts with the miners should be cancelled.

Wali Khan, a leader of the miners union, has threatened to stop all work if their share was not reinstated according to the old agreement.

Meanwhile, a tribal jirga has expressed satisfaction over the decision of dividing the profit equally between the tribesmen and the miners.

Due to the dispute over royalty, the mining business has suffered millions of rupees in losses. The district coordination officer, Kohat, who holds the charge of political agent, has constituted a jirga of elders of the Akhorwal tribe to resolve the issue.

The tribal elders have taken a firm stand on the royalty issue and made it clear to the miners that if they did not agree on the equal distribution of profit the tribesmen would buy the required machinery to earn 100 per cent profit from the coal discovered on their land.

The profit earned from the sale of coal is distributed among five sub-clans of the main Akhorwal tribe who had stopped work for two years following a dispute over the profit-distribution formula, as they did not want to share the money with one of the sub-tribes.

The profit of the tribe reached Rs40 million which would now be distributed among the five sub-tribes by a committee.

Malik Nasir Afridi and his uncle Malik Sucha Khan, who were killed by unknown persons near their house on Wednesday night, played a key role in resolving the royalty issue among the sub-clans of Akhorwal and initiating work on the mines after two years.