The Federal Cabinet has approved the first-ever ‘Mobile Device Manufacturing Policy’ to promote local manufacturing and assembly of mobile phone handsets.
The policy has been prepared by Engineering Development Board (EDB) after extensive consultation with public and private sector stakeholders.
The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) had already approved the Mobile Device Manufacturing Policy in its previous sitting.
Pakistan which has a market of over 40 million handsets aims to incentivize local assemblers who will provide jobs to local engineers, skilled and semi-skilled educated youth.
The salient features of the policy are as follows:
a. Removal of Regulatory Duty for CKD/SKD manufacturing by PTA approved manufactures under Input/Output Co-Efficient Organization (IOCO) approved import authorization.
b. Removal of Fixed Income Tax on CKD/SKD manufacturing of mobile devices up to USD 350 category.
c. Increase in Fixed Income Tax on USD 351 -500 USD category by Rs 2000 and > USD 500 by Rs 6300 on CKD/SKD manufacturing only.
d. Removal of Fixed Sales Tax on CKD/SKD manufacturing of mobile devices.
e. PTA shall allow activation of handsets manufactured in the country under import authorization of inputs by IOCO in CKD/SKD kit (8517.1211) and not under HS Code 8517.7000 i.e. parts. This will eliminate misdeclaration in parts category at the import stage. Activation of CBUs imported through notified routes after payment of all levied duties and taxes as fixed by government from time to time shall continue till further amendment.
f. In up to USD 30 category, words “except smart phones” to be inserted for CBU imports under 8517.1219 to avoid misdeclaration.
g. R&D allowance of 3% to be given to local manufacturers for exports of mobile phones.
h. Locally assembled /manufactured phones to be exempted from 4% of withholding tax on domestic sales.
i. Government to commit maintaining tariff differential between CBU and CKD/SKD till the expiry of the policy.
j. Local industry to ensure localization of parts and components as per roadmap included in draft policy.
k. EDB to act as Secretariat of Mobile Phone Manufacturing Policy and ensure development of allied parts, components and devices.
A total of 16 local companies are manufacturing mobile devices in the country out of which most of the companies are manufacturing feature phones i.e. 2G.
The companies are now shifting to manufacturing smart phones as technology is shifting towards 4G/5G. The local manufacturers have shown satisfaction on approval of mobile phone policy and are of the considered opinion that investment in this sector will start pouring

Lahore: A NESPAK-led joint venture has won the consultancy contract of Diamer Basha Dam Project through competitive bidding. The agreement was signed at a ceremony held at Mega Hydel Complex, Islamabad. General Manager/ Chief executive Officer/ Project Director Diamer Basha Development Company and Diamer Basha Consultants Group (DBCG) authorized representative Dr. Tahir Masood, MD NESPAK, signed the agreement on behalf of WAPDA and the Joint Venture respectively.
Ministry of Water Resources Federal Minister Muhammad Faisal Vawda, Federal Secretary Muhammad Ashraf, Joint Secretary Syed Muhammad Mehar Ali Shah, WAPDA Chairman Lt. Gen. (Retd) Muzammil Hussain, NESPAK Managing Director Dr. Tahir Masood, WAPDA Authority Members, senior officers and representatives of the consulting firms were also present on the occasion.
The Consultants will provide services through a joint venture comprising six Firms as JV members/partners, namely, National Engineering Services Pakistan (Pvt.) Ltd – Pakistan (Lead Firm), Pöyry (AFRY) Switzerland Limited – Switzerland, MWH (Stantec) International, Inc – USA, DOLSAR Engineering Inc. Co. – Turkey, Associated Consulting Engineers ACE Ltd. – Pakistan and MM Pakistan Pvt. Ltd – Pakistan. The Consultants’ scope of services includes detailed design review, construction design, construction supervision, contract administration and environment and resettlement aspects. It is pertinent to mention that NESPAK has been assigned the lead role in the contract for consultancy services in such a mega water sector project.
Diamer Basha Dam is proposed to be constructed on the Indus River. The site is 315 km upstream of Tarbela Dam Project, some 180 km below the town of Gilgit and 40 km downstream of Chilas, the headquarter of District Diamer in Gilgit-Baltistan. The project comprises construction of 272 m high Roller Compacted Concrete Dam (RCC), spillway, power intake, waterway tunnels and underground powerhouse one each on right & left side Abutment.
The project is scheduled to be completed in one hundred two months. On completion, the dam as proposed will be one of the largest RCC Dam in the World, the reservoir project will store about 8.1 million acre feet (MAF) of water, the powerhouse will generate 4500 megawatt (MW) of low-cost hydel electricity and help mitigating floods. About 1.23 MAF of land will be irrigated because of Basha Dam.

Bioenergy is a sustainable power source made accessible from materials got from organic sources. Biomass is any natural material which has put away daylight as synthetic vitality. Biofuel is one of the most modified classifications of bioenergy. There are additionally horticultural items explicitly being developed for biofuel creation. These incorporate corn, and soybeans and somewhat willow and switchgrass on a pre-business investigate level, fundamentally in the United States; rapeseed, wheat, sugar beet, and willow (15,000 ha or 37,000 sections of land in Sweden) essentially in Europe; sugarcane in Brazil; palm oil and miscanthus in Southeast Asia; sorghum and cassava in China; and jatropha in India. Hemp has additionally been demonstrated to function as a biofuel.
Biofuels can be delivered from plants (for example vitality crops), or rural, business, household, as well as mechanical squanders (if the waste has a natural cause). Inexhaustible biofuels by and large include contemporary carbon obsession, for example, those that happen in plants or microalgae through the procedure of photosynthesis. Biofuels, as fluid powers got from plant materials, are entering the market, driven by components, for example, oil cost spikes and the requirement for expanded vitality security. Nonetheless, huge numbers of these original biofuels that are as of now being provided have been reprimanded for their unfriendly effects on the indigenous habitat, nourishment security, and land use. The test is to help second, third and fourth-age biofuel advancement. Second-age biofuels incorporate new cellulosic advances, with mindful strategies and monetary instruments to help guarantee that biofuel commercialization is feasible. Mindful commercialization of biofuels speaks to a chance to improve reasonable monetary possibilities in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Biofuel advancement and use is a mind boggling issue in light of the fact that there are numerous biofuel choices which are accessible. Biofuels, for example, ethanol and biodiesel, are at present delivered from the results of regular nourishment yields, for example, the starch, sugar and oil feed stocks from crops that incorporate wheat, maize, sugar stick, palm oil and oilseed assault. A few scientists dread that a significant change to biofuels from such harvests would make an immediate rivalry with their utilization for nourishment and creature feed, and guarantee that in certain pieces of the world the financial outcomes are as of now unmistakable, different specialists take a gander at the land accessible and the tremendous regions of inert and deserted land and guarantee that there is space for an enormous extent of biofuel likewise from ordinary yields. The utilization of biomass energizes can accordingly add to squander the board just as fuel security and help to forestall or hinder environmental change, albeit alone they are not an extensive answer for these issues.
Biomass can be changed over to other usable types of vitality like methane gas or transportation fills like ethanol and biodiesel. Spoiling trash, and farming and human waste, all discharge methane gas—additionally called “landfill gas” or “biogas.” Crops, for example, corn and sugar stick, can be aged to create the transportation fuel, ethanol. Biodiesel, another transportation fuel, can be created from left-over nourishment items like vegetable oils and creature fats. Additionally, Biomass to liquids (BTLs) and cellulosic ethanol are still under research. The Sustainable Biofuels Consensus is a worldwide activity which calls upon governments, the private area, and different partners to make a definitive move to guarantee the economical exchange, creation, and utilization of biofuels. Right now may assume a key job in vitality part change, atmosphere adjustment, and coming about overall revitalization of rustic zones.
The Sustainable Biofuels Consensus imagines a “scene that gives nourishment, grub, fiber, and vitality, which offers open doors for country improvement; that expands vitality supply, reestablishes biological systems, secures biodiversity, and sequesters carbon”. Biofuels offer the possibility of genuine market rivalry and oil value control. As indicated by the Wall Street Journal, raw petroleum would exchange 15 percent higher and fuel would be as much as 25 percent increasingly costly, on the off chance that it were not for biofuels. A sound stock of elective vitality sources will assist with combating fuel value spikes. Biofuels have a constrained capacity to supplant non-renewable energy sources and ought not to be viewed as a ‘silver projectile’ to manage transport emanations. Biofuels all alone can’t convey a reasonable vehicle framework thus should be created as a component of an incorporated methodology, which advances other sustainable power source choices and vitality productivity, just as lessening the general vitality request and the requirement for transport. Thought should be given to the improvement of crossbreed and energy component vehicles, open vehicles, and better town and provincial arranging

hazards as well as unfavorable economic conditions due to the availability of more affordable and cleaner renewable energy sources, it becomes hard to understand why Pakistan still needs to develop the proposed coal infrastructure. With an already existing wide understanding around Coal-based electricity not being economically sustainable compared to renewable energy, in the current report we look at how the operational and under-construction coal cluster in Thar will add to the already hazardous air pollution levels. The study will also estimate the health impacts of additional coal capacity in the region in terms of premature deaths and disabilities caused due to pollutants emitted from the operation of coal-based power plants and mines in the Thar region.
Results
Emissions
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports were available for the Block II, Thar Energy Limited (TEL) and Block VI power stations. As these projects encompass the two different technologies planned to be used in the cluster, Circulating Fluidized Bed and sub-critical pulverized coal boilers, and all of them reported similar targeted emissions control performance, emissions data from these EIAs was generalized to the other projects.
Annual emissions were calculated from the emissions rates in grams per second, given in the EIAs. For plants for which EIAs were not available, emissions rates were estimated based on the most similar plant with an EIA, scaled by plant capacity. In both scenarios, all plants were assumed to run at 7,000 full-load hours per year, the low end of the assumptions used in the EIAs – operating rates up to 7,400 hours were assumed but were deemed unrealistic. Stack height and other properties affecting plume rise were generalized from values given in the three EIAs. The emissions estimates assume that the plants fully and properly operate their emissions controls. If there are gaps in operation & maintenance or enforcement, the emissions and impacts could be considerably higher. Dust emissions from the mines were calculated using emission factors developed by the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP) of the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) for lignite mining. Annual lignite production at each mine was projected based on estimated coal consumption of plants using coal from the mine – these values are generally lower than the production volumes assumed in the mine EIAs, but the intention was to model the impacts of coal mining associated with the studied power plants.
Multiple issues were found with the emission data provided in the EIAs.
● The mercury (Hg) emissions for block VI are massively under-reported – actual emissions should be about 200 times higher. Apparently the consultant that prepared the EIA is not aware that only a tiny fraction of mercury in the plant flue gas is bound to fly ash and hence assumes that mercury will be almost fully captured by the fly ash controls. In reality, the emission control technologies the plant will incorporate capture 20% of the mercury, at most (UNEP 2017). The other EIAs fail to provide any information whatsoever about mercury emissions into the air, one of the key environmental and public health impacts of coal-fired power plants.
● The TEL EIA shows that air pollution levels in the area violate both the Sindh standards and the IFC guidelines (not to mention the WHO guideline) for PM10. This means that the IFC emission limits for degraded airshed should be applied. Yet both the Block VI and TEL EIAs give the reader the impression that the projects intend to follow IFC guidelines.
● However, the air quality data provided in the EIAs themselves make it clear that the air quality in the project area is in violation of the Sindh Ambient Air Quality Standard, the IFC guideline and the World Health Organization guideline for annual average PM10 concentrations. This means that if the projects intend to follow the IFC guidelines, they should adopt the values for degraded airshed, which are significantly stricter than the applied values. Hence the EIAs mislead the public about the emission control technology they intend to adopt.
● All of the EIAs neglect to model the combined air quality impacts of the lignite mines and the power plants that they are fueling. The Block II power station EIA in fact acknowledges that the air quality impact of the mine dominates in the vicinity of the block but states that the impact is excluded, with no justification given.
The existence of such elementary errors and omissions in the cornerstone data used in the EIAs makes it appear that the reports have not been independently reviewed by the regulator, raising serious questions about the level of regulatory oversight.
Four photos of concentrations
Toxic deposition
The Thar power plant and mining cluster would emit approximately 1400 kg of mercury and 5,000 tonnes of heavy metal-containing particulate matter (coal dust and fly ash) per year. Approximately one fifth (22%) of the mercury emitted by the plants is estimated to be deposited into land and freshwater ecosystems in the region, amounting to approximately 320 kg per year. Mercury deposition rates as low as 125 mg/ha/year can lead to accumulation of unsafe levels of mercury in fish (Swain et al 1992). The plants are estimated to cause mercury deposition above 125mg/ha/yr in an area of 1,300 km2 to the northeast of the plants, with a population of approximately 100,000 people (Figure 4). While actual mercury uptake and biomagnification depends very strongly on local chemistry, hydrology and biology, the predicted mercury deposition rates are a cause for serious concern and an assessment of the impacts and of measures to reduce mercury emissions is needed urgently.
The study has made following recommendations
● Stringent emission standards should be developed and enforced to control PM, SO2 , NO2 and Hg pollution emission as well as to reduce the usage of water by operational coal-based power plants, similar to other countries such as those in force in the EU and China, and being implemented in India.
● It is essential to fully assess and take into account the cost of air pollution and other external impacts when making decisions about future power generation. Meeting growth in electricity demand by renewable energy development would greatly reduce these costs.
● The planned addition of a large amount of coal-fired capacity would worsen Pakistan’s already hazardous air quality, while adding to the indebtedness of the power sector and increasing capacity charges for untitled power from these coal-based plants. In order to reduce such negative impacts on public health and the economy, the coal-based plants in early stages of development should be canceled and currently, operational plants should be used at optimal capacity to be able to meet electricity demand more economically

Balochistan has launched an online Business Registration Portal to provide one window business registration facility to businessmen. The initiative has taken by the Balochistan Board of Investment to facilitate investors and reduce time and cost on the registration of business.
The online business registration portal will facilitate the business community on the registration of business at their doorstep.
The web portal will be linked with other departments including Excise and Taxation, Labor Department and Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to provide an inter-departmental administrative framework.
“Through the portal, the entrepreneurs will be able to complete all registration procedures online, which were required by different departments.
Chief Executive of BBI Farman Zarkoon said that the provincial government was taking all possible steps to promote trade and economic activities in Balochistan.
The Board was using all its resources to facilitate and provide incentives to the investors and the business community. Facilities will be provided to investors and industrialists, especially in special economic zones of Hub and Bostan, he added. Speaking on the occasion Chief Secretary Balochistan Fazeel Asghar said that Business Registration Portal is an important development in the promotion of business and industrial activities in Balochistan. In the future, Balochistan will be the center of trade and economic activities in the region