The present government has formulated investment-friendly policies focusing to provide enabling business environment to local and foreign investors which include declaring Thar Coalfield as Special Economic Zone, approving fiscal incentive package for coal mining and power projects by giving tax holidays and duty free import of machinery for 30 years and 20% rate of return for those projects which achieve financial close by 2015 etc. Pakistan has huge lignite coal reserves in Thar estimated to 175 billion tons.
The quality of Thar Lignite Coal is at par or even better than the lignite mined in other parts of the world. This is stated by spokesman to Sindh and Energy Development Department here on Thursday. He said, ‘Renowned international companies like RWE Germany, SRK United Kingdom, Sino Coal China, North East Coal Bureau China and China Coal Technology & Engineering Group have done detailed feasibilities in Thar and all of them concluded that Thar Coal Mining is technically, economically and environmentally viable project and this coal can be used for power generation and other petro chemical uses.’
He added, ‘Presently three companies viz, Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company, Oracle Coalfields UK and Sino-Sindh Resources China have completed their Detailed Feasibility Studies and their projects of open cast mining are expected to start within this year. These three projects has total power generation planned in the first Phase is 2100 MW by 2016. The Government of Sindh is giving high priority to the development of Thar Coal Government and has allocated around 3 billion rupees in the last four years for coal and energy related projects like coal exploration, block development, mining and infrastructure development.
These include development of 12 coal blocks at Thar to prove estimated reserves as per international standards, improvement of roads, construction of mining rescue center, water channel from LBOD to Thar via Nabisar with treatment facility, effluent disposal channel from coalfield, construction of 20 bedded Thar Lodge, establishment of Thar Airport at Islamkot and installation of reserve osmosis plants for provision of potable water to local people and project developers. Beside these infrastructure development projects, government of Sindh also entered in the mining project through a joint venture with Engro Group.’
‘The Federal government is also playing its role for expeditious development of Thar Coal. The projects off transmission network are being prioritized by the Ministry of Water and Power, Planning Commission and other related agencies. Recently the Asian development Bank has signed a loan agreement wit the Economic Affairs Division to fund transmission network projects including Transmission Line from Matiari to Rahim Yar Khan. For the other component of Thar Transmission Network i.e. from Thar to Matiarri, NTDC has completed the PC-I at the cost of 20 billion rupees and various foreign lenders have shown interest in financing this project’, he concluded.
