Lawmakers, officials distribute compensation cheques among villagers

The PPP MNA Dr Mahesh Kumar Malani, MPA Fakeer Sher Mohammad Bilalani, DC Tharparkar, Mohammad Nawaz Soho and other officials  distributed the cheques among the residents of  Varwai village. The villagers are likely to be displaced from their centuries-old  homes and hearths due to the massive coal extraction in Block 1 of Thar Coalfields near Islamkot town.

Dr Malani and others speaking to the media persons during the ceremony said that residents of the village were given the proper compensation of their properties by Sindh government as the agreement duly signed by villagers and the officials of the mining firms engaged in the coal extraction and power generation in the block1.

He said that all those being displaced would be given the proper compensation by the mining firms on the directives of the hih-ups of Sindh government adding he hoped that mega projects being launched in Thar would usher in a new era of progress and proposterity in the desert district. Mohammad Nawaz Soho, the deputy commissioner Tharparkar, when contacted told this reporter that as many as 76 residents were given the cheques ofd Rs 2.125 million in the second installment adding he informed that all the residents of Varwai would be compensated for their households. structures and even trees as per the commitment.

Here it is pertinent to mention that officials of the mining firms in Block 1 unlike the executives of Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) instead of adopting the resettlement policy by providing the houses and other required facilities to the displaced residents of Senhri Dars, were only given the compensation of their houses and some other structures. Many villagers after refusing to get the compensation  cheques of the second installment had already warned to offer stiff resistance to any move to forcibly evict them from their centuries old village.

The activists, who have been protesting along with Tharis against the greedy executives of the mining firms engaged in the coal extraction urged the high-ups of Sindh government to sit with the villagers and provide them with the alternative houses with all required facilties with the grazing lands for their livestock. They believe that such decisions of the firms to provide compensation only once would displace several hundred families from their heartlands in the coming years with more open-pit mining of the huge coal reserves.