Thar to Port Qasim 105-km railway project greenlit for coal haulage

KARACHI: The government is set to start building a 105-kilometer railway line from Thar to Port Qasim, aiming to boost coal transport from local fields to power plants across the country, officials said on Tuesday.

The project, funded by both federal and Sindh governments, will be managed by federal authorities. Despite environmental impact concerns, officials assert that measures are in place to prevent any negative effects.

“All the environment aspects have been taken care of and the project would not have any adverse impacts on the environment,” an official at Sindh Energy Department said.

The railway track will ensure coal transportation from Thar coalfields to power projects across the country. The government plans to augment the contribution of cost-effective coal-based energy in Pakistan’s energy mix.

However, an expert on coal-related environmental issues said that Thar coal itself has been a subject of major environmental concerns as concerns were raised by the local community, human rights groups, and experts even before the projects took off.

However, much worse has unfolded for the local community in the form of depleted water quality and degraded air quality, Zeenia Shaukat, an expert on coal projects, said. “The resultant social change has led to a loss of livelihood, migration, destitution, and poor development opportunities for a community that was already on the margins of development due to poor state services in the region.”

Shaukat said there have been numerous researches and documentaries on how coal has deteriorated the lives of Tharis. “Tharis have literally been punished for their deep commitment to their land, sustainable way of living, and practices adhering to respect for ecology.”

About the railway line, she said it will be passing through agricultural land, possibly reserved forests, and human settlements at various points during the transport process. “Once it reaches Port Qasim, it will be affecting the local population during loading/unloading and handling and loading operations. There can be potential spills and most likely disturbances to ecosystems and agriculture production along the transportation route,” she noted.

Shaukat pointed out that the narrative of the project is built on the false assertion that Thar coal is cheap fuel and employing it in energy development will bring the electricity prices down. “There are several problems with this narrative. The fact is that indigenous coal is technically not going to lead to a lowering of prices, because power prices are a function of multiple complex factors including transmission/distribution infrastructure, capacity payments, production charges, and others; generation is only one part of the equation. We have all seen how capacity payments alone have jacked up the price of electricity in Pakistan several folds,” she added.

She said that coming back to the point about coal transportation, back in 2018, there was a massive public backlash against Port Qasim Authority over the environmental impacts of the coal handling operations at the Port. “Coal dust and spillage had covered the whole area leading to a thick blanket of coal dust all day, resulting in major respiratory disease risk. The transportation of the imported coal not only affected the local residents, it also affected the industrial units situated in the vicinity affecting their operations.”

“If the government is switching from imported coal to local coal, how different will it be in terms of its impact on the community in Port Qasim? There has been no environmental impact assessment of the transportation process itself. The local community and industrial units at Port Qasim will be affected by the handling of local coal in a similar way as they got affected by the handling of the imported coal.”