How Chinese company having tough times in dealing with Pakistani thieves

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has been informed by the Chinese leadership during his recent visit that Beijing has no plans to start a new coal project after the former informed about his relocation of Gwadar plant.

A Chinese company has written to the Sindh government in Pakistan complaining about increased theft in Thar Coal Block-1, according to a report in Intekhab Daily.

Youths are stealing electric cables and other materials, the chairman of the company claimed in the letter. To add salt to the injury, the cops are accused of bailing out the thieves. "They are stealing electric cables, steel products and other precious materials and instruments. If arrested, the thieves are rescued by the police," ANI quoted the chairman of the company as saying in the letter.

He also mentioned in the letter about a transmission line getting badly damaged and requested the Secretary of Sindh to ban public movement in the 2-km area around the fence of the Thar Coal Block-1, reported the daily. "If the theft incidents are not controlled, we will be unable to give the required results," he has warned.

Beijing against relocation of the plant

On the other hand, Beijing forced Pakistan not to relocate the 300-MW coal-fired power plant from Gwadar to Thar, sources informed Business Recorder. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has been informed by the Chinese leadership during his recent visit that Beijing has no plans to start a new coal project after the former informed about his relocation of Gwadar plant.

The Pakistan PM wanted the Minister for Planning to expeditiously decide the matter within the CEPC Framework Agreement, considering the overall strategic cooperation between the two countries and the extraordinary support provided by China. However, the Private Power & Infrastructure Board (PPIB), which was pressing the Chinese company to relocate its project from imported coal at Gwadar to local at Thar, has not responded to the development, according to ANI report.

Protests at Gwadar

Protesters last year threatened to block the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects if their demands, which included banning illegal trawling in Gwadar, were not met.

Last year, the Dawn newspaper in a scathing editorial said "Gwadar port has long been portrayed as the jewel in the CPEC crown, but in the process, the city has become the very embodiment of a security state" with government focussing on securing the port and its ancillary interests while neglecting the welfare of the local people.

"Far from the port being a harbinger of an economic boom, the opposite has happened. Existing privations have deepened; people's mobility is restricted by security forces and there is unwarranted questioning of their activities. Many say they are made to feel like strangers in their own land," it said.

A large number of local fishermen also complain that the Pakistan government has issued licences to Chinese trawlers to fish in the waters off the Balochistan coast further "squeezing" their livelihoods.

Gwadar is pivotal to CPEC as it is the end point of the controversial project over which India has objected to China as it is being laid through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). CPEC connects Gwadar located on the Arabian Sea coast close to Iran with China's Xinjiang province. The project, which is being laid through Karakoram highway, provides China access to the Arabian Sea.

Pakistan has handed over Gwadar port development to China, sparking concerns that it could in the long run become a Chinese naval base.