Sindh mulls granite mining policy

KARACHI: Sindh government is mulling to form a granite mining policy for Tharparkar’s Karoonjhar Range, estimated to hold million of tons of the coarse-grained igneous rock.

Sindh Minister for Mines and Minerals, Rural Development and Public Health Engineering Mir Shabbir Ali Bijarani presided over a meeting in this regard at Sindh Secretariat Karachi on Wednesday.

The event was attended by Minister for Culture and Antiquities Sindh Syed Sardar Ali Shah, MNA Mahesh Kumar Malani, MPA Qasim Siraj Soomro from Tharparkar, Veerji Kolhi, Sindh Mines and Minerals Department Secretary Zulfiqar Ali Shah, and other officials from various departments including environment, and wildlife.

“The approximate estimate of granite in Karoonjhar is 26 billion tons,” the meeting was informed. It was also told during the briefing that most of the granite in the region was underground.

Participants urged to secure the landscape of the area, as well as the traditional, religious and cultural heritage in the mining policy. They further asked that “no permission” should be granted to mine the hilly areas “above surface” to retain and protect the natural beauty of the landscape.