Mining at Karoonjhar Hills in Thar stopped after protests by locals, PA told

The Sindh Assembly was informed on Monday that mining at the Karoonjhar Hills of the Nagarparkar region of Thar was no more being carried out after protests by the local population.

Sindh Minister for Mines and Mineral Development Shabbir Ali Bajrani stated this while responding to queries of the concerned MPAs during the question hour of the session. The mines minister said the Karoonjhar Hills were a beautiful feature of Thar and the provincial government had formed a committee to look into the issue of mining on the hills.

He said the committee members had met the local people as after listening to their complaints and reservations, it had decided to discontinue the mining work on the hills. He said the mining work was not being carried out on the hills as per the recommendation of the committee.

He said the mining work in the Thar area had been halted also in view of court directives. Bijarani said the mining work would resume at the hills once the issues were resolved. He said that as per the reports available with the government, 20 million tonnes of granite reserves were present in the Karoojhar hills and their mining would be beneficial for the local population as well.

He said the Sindh government had the complete resolve to promote the mining sector so as to extract precious minerals present in the province. Meanwhile, a lawmaker belonging to the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party, Ghazala Siyal, raised the issue of the vehicular traffic mess in Sohrab Goth due to illegal terminals of buses, rickshaws and trucks.

The PPP MPA urged the provincial government to adopt a mechanism to resolve the traffic issues in the area. Parliamentary Secretary Ghanwer Ali Khan Isran assured the House that the provincial government was working on a plan to resolve this issue.

Later, Deputy Speaker Rehana Laghari adjourned the session till 2pm Tuesday (today) after lawmaker of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Khurrum Sher Zaman pointed out lack of quorum in the House.