Flexibility needed

According to a BR Report, bowing to the wishes of the Sindh government the federal government has withdrawn its notification for the establishment of Thar Coal Authority (TCA), which it had wanted to put in place after abolishing the Sindh Coal Authority (SCA) and Thar Coal Mining Company (TCMC).
The Sindh government did not like the move, and decided to resist TCA, issuing two notifications of its own to set up Thar Coal and Energy Board and to enhance the strength of the board members.
Behind these discordant moves is the feeling in Sindh, as expressed by the former chief minister, Dr Arbab Rahim, and later his successor, caretaker chief minister Abdul Qadir Halepota, that certain 'vested interests' at the Centre were raising "frivolous impediments" in the way of the proposed integrated coal-fired power plant project.
It needs to be recalled that the provincial government had spent a good three billion rupees to develop infrastructure in support of the project that was to generate upto 100 MW power. It had even signed MoUs with several companies, and almost finalised a deal with a Chinese company, which fell through because of the Centre's intervention over tariff determination.
The federal government refused to allow upfront tariff even though Wapda had agreed that this could be done for different coalfields using the price of imported Indonesian coal as a benchmark, and based on the calorific value of Thar coal. Consequently, the project has remained on hold while the power shortages have assumed crisis proportions.
And of course, the province has been unhappy over the wastage of both its efforts and precious resources. The present government tried to infuse new energy into the project last July when it cosponsored with the World Bank a high profile investor roundtable in Washington. Confident in the knowledge that the federal government had backtracked on its TCA decision, Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah addressed a news conference on Wednesday to promote the project.
He explained that within the next 10-12 years 100,000 mw electricity could be generated from 175 billion tons of Thar coal reserves. Many companies from Germany, Poland and Australia as well as the US, said the CM, were interested in investing about $12 billion in coal-based power generation. He also took the opportunity to iterate that the Thar coal reserves belonged to the people of Sindh, and that no one could take them away.
Surely, the province owns the coal reserves, but the problem is that power generation is a federal subject. Which means the Centre can still cause trouble, as it did in the past, when the investors are ready to come in and the Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB) gets active to play its role.
So far, the federal government's response to Sindh's resistance to TCA is reflective of a much welcome willingness to show flexibility. That may serve as a good precedent for Balochistan as well where people would be watching closely how things turn out with regard to power generation in the Thar coalfields.