IT is indeed heartening that after a lapse of almost a decade, action has finally been taken by the relevant accountability court against officials allegedly involved in abuse of powers and corruption in the Reko Diq project, which, unfortunately, never got off the ground. One hopes that the case will result in a logical conclusion.

Huge copper deposits were discovered in 1969 in Reko Diq in Balochistan’s Chaghai district. It was estimated to be one of the largest deposits in the world discovered in the last half-a-century. The total value of the minerals at Reko Diq is estimated at over a trillion dollars.

Balochistan has vast mineral resources, including iron, copper, silver and gold, but remains the poorest province owing to abuse of political power, large-scale corruption and hasty decisions of past governments due to which the exploration and exploitation of minerals never materialised in a big way.

Hussain Siddiqui

Islamabad

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2020