The Sindh Assembly (SA) on Wednesday unanimously passed the Thar Coal Energy Board Bill-2011, enabling the provincial government to attract domestic and international investment for the development of coal mining and power generation projects by utilizing huge Thar Col reserves available in the province.
The board will comprise 14 members and will be headed by the Sindh chief minister (CM). The members will include five from the Federal government and nine from the Sindh government; the provincial chief secretary (CS) will be among Sindh’s representatives on the board while others will include federal ministers for Finance, Law and Water & Power, Planning Commission deputy chairman, Water & Power secretary, a female member from Thar, and three provincial ministers to be nominated by the government.
Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F) members initially strongly opposed the bill by terming it a “black law”, but later supported the bill and cast their votes in its favour. PML-F lawmakers Nusrat Saher Abbasi and Marvi Rashdi argued that the Sindh Coal Authority already exists and therefore, the formation of a new body was not needed. They went to say that the government wants to withdraw of its right by inducting Federal government’s representatives in the Board. They also said that a petition is also under hearing in the Sindh High Court against the formation of the Board.
Sindh Law Minister Ayaz Soomro, who presented the bill, regretted the objections raised by the PML-F lawmakers, especially declaring the bill as “black law”. He said that if this bill was a “black law”, then he would say that his colleagues were not sincere with interests of the Sindh.
Soomro said that the Federal government’s bureaucracy was already creating hindrances regarding developing Thar Coal under supervision of the Sindh government, but the provincial government would continue its efforts to explore and develop the Sindh’s precious coal reserves. In this regard, he added, the government was also bringing another bill, Sindh Coal Act soon, to ensure that only the Sindh and people of the province were owners of the Thar coal.
Sindh Finance Minister Murad Ali Shah said that hearing the bill being declared as black law was painful, especially since the PML-F in its tenure had established the Thar Coal Mining Company – a body that handed 80 percent ownership of coal to the Centre. He said that the present government abolished the company and got back the province’s right, that the PML-F government had also forced a Chinese company to return on the issue of 0.4 saint tariff.
Opposition leader, Jam Madad Ali, and MQM’s parliamentary leader, Syed Sardar Ahmed also supported the bill, while terming it a good initiative. Jam also tried to clarify that the PML-F lawmakers actually do not mean what they said in their speeches earlier.
The house also passed the Zulfikarabad Development Authority (Amendment) Bill-2011 “to add a member in its governing body, and to empower the chief minister to appoint any member or person as vice-chairman or secretary of the governing body. The house deferred adopting another bill, Sindh Hotels and Restaurants Bill, 2011 for other day due to differences among the members on introducing amendments in the bill.
