New Delhi, March 31 (IANS) Assurances made in 2019 by PPP Co-chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah that 100 per cent of the royalties generated by the Thar Coal project would be dedicated to the development of Tharparkar district in Sindh remain unfulfilled, a report in the Karachi-based Business Recorder publication has highlighted.

Between 2023 and 2025, the provincial government collected an estimated Rs 50 billion (Pakistani rupee) in royalties from coal extraction, while also benefitting from its 54.7 per cent stake in the Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company, making it a principal beneficiary of the project’s commercial success. Yet, public investment in the district pales in comparison to these earnings, the report points out.

The Annual Development Programme allocation for Tharparkar stood at around Rs 10 billion in FY2024-25, which by any scale remains just a fraction of the revenues the region generates, the report laments.

While Sindh government representatives have been claiming that investments have been made in roads, hospitals and schools in the region, the fact of the matter is that Tharparkar remains one of the poorest districts in Pakistan, with an abysmal poverty rate of 76.9 per cent, according to a 2025 World Bank report.

The disparity is perhaps most pronounced in the social sector. The Thar Foundation, responsible for welfare initiatives in the district, operates on an annual budget of Rs 750 million. While this amount may seem substantial in isolation, when measured against the tens of billions derived from the coal reserves, it represents only a small sliver of the value extracted from the land, the report observes.

At the heart of the issue lies a basic institutional failure. There is still no formal, legislatively backed mechanism that clearly stipulates how the funds flowing in from Thar Coal are to be channelled from provincial accounts to the authorities responsible for spending them in Tharparkar.

The promise – the district’s coal wealth would translate into tangible development for its most marginalised communities – remains little more than rhetoric in the absence of such a framework. This continued failure to establish a structured, transparent and legally binding system, in fact, represents a serious dereliction of duty on part of the Sindh government, the report added.

--IANS

sps/na