Staff Reporter
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that the Sindh government was working hard to generate clean energy by installing wind and solar power projects.
This he said while talking to US Consul General in Karachi, Robert Silberstein who called on him here on Tuesday at CM House.
The Sindh CM said that the breakthrough the Sindh government has made in coal-fire power generation in Thar is a milestone in the country.
These projects have not only created employment opportunities for the locals but have changed the dynamics of life style in Thar desert where women empowerment has become the major intervention, he added.
The chief minister said that the country was energy starved and the government has the only option to generate electricity from Thar coal.
Syed Murad Ali Shah said that the project development was a gigantic task and the more difficult task was the settlement of the affected people in better way by passing on the benefits of the projects established on their ancestral lands.
Now look at the residential colonies we have established for affected people, he said and added they were enjoying quite comfortable life which is fusion of their desert and modern life.
We have given them beautiful houses with corridors and igloo type of room locally called as ‘Chonra’, a mosque, a temple, beautiful school, hospital, electricity, water supply and top of it grazing area for their cattle which they keep like their family members, he said.
The visiting US diplomat said he had visited the area and was impressed. Robert Silberstein told the chief minister the coal projects, wind projects and the human settlement made by the government impressed him very much. The American Consul General told the chief minister that he visited NED Engineering college in Mithi.
He appreciated the step of the provincial government but said it was a small institute.
At this the chief minister said he had already reserved a 300 acre land for the university and said it was dream to establish a full-fledged university.
Robert assured the chief minister that the American government would support the provincial government in establishing an state-of-art university in Thar. The chief minister thanked him for his support.
