Energy Bangla

Prime Minister Muhammed Nawaz Sharif along with ex-president of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari will perform ground-breaking of Thar coal mining project and 660MW coal fired electricity generating plant at Islamkot near here on Friday. All arrangements have been finalized by the Sindh Government as well as district administration Tharparkar about Prime Minister’s visit, said Deputy Commissioner Tharparkar Makhdoom Aqeel Zaman while talking to APP here on Thursday. It may be recalled that Sindh Government has already spent over Rs 20 billion for the development of infrastructure, provision of water through LBOD after refining it through RO plants and construction of road via Badin and Thatta and other basic necessities.
The project is being carried out jointly by the Sindh government and Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC). The power plant’s capacity would be increased from 660MW to 1,320MW at a later stage.
Nearly 230km transmission lines would be stretched to link the plant with the national grid told APP the spokesman of Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company. Companies willing to invest in the coal project would be given incentives added SECMC Spokesman.
Total 12 blocks of Thar coal minings had been set up. Thar coal deposits described as the 6th largest coal reserves in the world, were discovered in 1991 by Geological Survey of Pakistan (GSP) and the United State Agency for International Development.
Pakistan has emerged as one of the leading countries-seventh in the list of top 20 countries of the world after the discovery of huge lignite coal resources in Sindh. It is one of the world’s largest lignite deposits discovered by GSP in 90s with an estimated quantity of around 175 billion tonnes sufficient to meet the country’s fuel requirements for centuries.
Renowned scientist Dr Samar Mubarakmand is supervising coal mining under ground gasification programme where work was in progress in four blocks of underground gasification project.
Sindh Government announced to resettle the population of the mining field.