Editorial of Siddiq Baluch Gaddani as another energy corridor The Prime Minister had told newsmen that his Government had plans to make Gaddani, a coastal township close to Karachi, as the future energy corridor of Pakistan. He did not give further details presuming that the coal based power generation plants will be established in this coastal township keeping pollution far away from Punjab and also Sindh. Earlier in 1980, a Hong Kong based company proposed to build a huge power plant based on Thar Coal. They planned to produce more than 10000 MW electricity. The shortsighted or biased rulers not only opposed the project but also chased out the company and its people for making plans to produce electricity from a place in Balochistan. Thus the huge power project was shelved and instead, HUBCO floated the idea of building a power plant near Hub and it faced difficulties from all corners of the power corridor. Later, it was proposed to make Pasni-Gwadar region as the huge energy corridor planning to bring gas pipelines from Turkmenistan, Iran and Qatar beside oil pipeline from Iran and other countries for dumping and storing huge quantity of oil and gas for export to the outside world and also convert into electricity meeting the needs of India and Pakistan, the two most populated countries of the region. So far, the project is not implemented except the announcement from the Islamic Republic of Iran that it will build an oil refinery by investing more than 4.5 billion US dollars. There must be plans for using Iran Gas for generating electricity. Some biased Pakistani officials are on record to have declared that Iranian gas will not be available for domestic consumers in Balochistan which was widely condemned by all right minded people that it is discriminatory. The whole of Punjab up to borders with India and KPK got Sui gas facilities for the half a century and now the Baloch people are being denied natural gas from the Iran gas pipeline passing through the heart of Baloch mainland. In any case, Gwadar is the best option to be the major energy corridor as the Iranian Gas pipeline had already reached closer to the port city. Turkmen and Qatar gas and oil pipeline will ultimately connect with Gwadar for export to outside world. Thus more feasible place will be Gwadar for energy corridor. Gaddani can be the alternate place of Punjab of Sindh to confine pollution to Balochistan and save the Punjab by using Thar Coal for power generation.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 20:38:12 +0000