Inter-Provincial Committee on Thar Coal Development meets
By Khalid Amin

ISLAMABAD—Caretaker Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Mr. Ahsan Ullah Khan today chaired a meeting of Inter-Provincial Committee constituted by the Prime Minister to workout expeditious plan for International competitive bidding to produce 20,000 MW coal based thermal power by 2019 from 175 Billion Tons of coal resource of Thar.
The meeting was attended by the Caretaker Federal Minister for Water and Power, Mr. Tariq Hamid, Dy. Chairman Planning Commission Dr. Muhammad Akram Sheikh, Secretaries M/o Petroleum and Water & Power, MD, Private Power Infrastructure Board (PPIB), Chairman NEPRA, MD WAPDA and representatives of government of Sindh.
In his opening remarks, the Petroleum Minister said that the government was striving to exploit the indigenous energy resources to meet the growing need of the country. He said that power generation from vast deposits of coal in Thar is the need of the hour to overcome the growing energy supply and demand gap for sustaining the rapid socio-economic growth in the country.
The Minister said that utilization of Thar Coal resources by employing modern mining technology and skills would be a major step ensuring energy security as well as curtailing the dependence on import of energy.
The meeting reviewed the updated progress on Thar coal development and recommended that document for indicative tariff of Thar coal be processed for international competitive bidding on urgent basis in order to invited the prospective companies of repute and standing for their participation in the mega project of power generation based on the indigenous lignite coal.