The land utilization authorities in Sindh’s Board of Revenue (BoR) have started gathering data on the land allotted to private companies for setting up renewable power plants in the province.
Some half a decade back, the Sindh government had allotted over 7 thousand acres of land to some 15 private companies that intended to set up power plants in the province claiming to have facilitated local investors to put their money in renewable power generation.
Since it’s almost 5 years, the department requires to know if the land is utilized for the purpose it was allotted for, says a report.
The LU department has written letters to the companies asking them to reply in two weeks.
As per agreements reached with the allottees the lease on the land would stand canceled if it was not utilized for the purpose of building of power generation unit. It was obligatory to start work on the project within the first six months after the allotment of the land, it says.
If the land is not utilized for the project and the purpose specified in lease documents then the government is authorized to lease such land to other investors and authorities will not be liable to issue any notice or refund the amount paid for the land.
The companies which have been asked to furnish details include Thatta Solar Part (Pvt.) Ltd which was to set up a 20-megawatt power generation unit on 120 acres of land allotted to the company.
Indus Energy was supposed to set up a 50-megawatt unit for which the company had been allotted 428 acres of land.
Gul Ahmed Energy had got 370 acres of land for setting up a 50-megawatt power project.
Artistic Milliners had been allotted 462 acres for the generation of 60 megawatts.
Metro wind Limited was allotted 410 acres, Zulekha was allotted 322 acres for a 50-megawatt project, Noor Solar Energy was allotted 330 acres, Green Energy Limited was allotted 360 acres, Din Energy Limited was allotted 325 acres for generating 50 Megawatts, and Telecom Wind Power was allotted 347 for 50 megawatts.
Also, MCC Limited was allotted 500 acres for setting up a 100 megawatts power project.
Lakeside Energy was to generate 50 megawatts and was allotted 345 acres of land and ACT2 Wind was to generate 50 megawatts on 320 acres.
Norinco International Cooperation Ltd was to set up 50X2 megawatts power projects and the company was allotted 2500 acres of land. – By Sagheer Chandio

The minutes of the meeting of a subcommittee on the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) has created a kind of rumpus in engineering circles and pushed anxiety levels to a new high.
Because, the document—the minutes—that reached the stakeholders do not reflect what was transpired in the moot in actual terms.
Who did what with the minutes and with what intent is needs to be scrutinized at all but the immediate sighting is that the document is itself a basket of contradictions which talks volumes about the whims of a very restricted group of contractors of them a few seem to have bent upon going ahead no matter what the new entity is doomed to result for PEC and the construction industry itself.
The level of ignorance is so high that the majority of contractors do not subscribe to the opinion that this board should be set up under the federal ministry of PD&SI and they should be allowed to part ways from the regulatory framework of the Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC).
Numerous colleagues of CAP leaders caught by CIDB syndrome claim it is nothing but a result of a personal grudge of a few obstinate contractors close to the ruling circles and continue to remain stuck up in the past.
A big number of contractors in Sindh, Balochistan, KP, and Punjab are said to be against any move that damages a decades-old institution—PEC. They have begun to post their reactions on social media and expressed their views in meetings across Pakistan.
Now about the minutes of the moot hosted by the ministry of PD&SI held on February 25!. The meeting heard the views of stakeholders such as the Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC), Contractors Association of Pakistan (CAP), ACEP, PCATP, P3A, and P&D.
Of them, PEC, ACEP, and PCATP supported the incubation of CIDB under the umbrella of PEC. ACEP represented by Engr. Waseem Asghar was shown in the minutes as supporting CAP’s point of view but in fact, it did not.
Engr. Asghar denied supporting CAP’s point of view and told ER that he had written to the ministry.
In all who should be deemed as parties, in this case, the majority of them (stakeholders) do not support CIDB out of the ambit of PEC. Only CAP views it differently and interestingly enough the organization, as its fellow contractors claim do not represent the contractors’ community in genuine terms.
CAP has around 400 members and on the contrary, the total number of registered contractors in the country run in thousands, and, PEC records show them over 25 thousand as active. And also, several organizations represent contractors in all four provinces of Pakistan; CAP is not the only representative of this community.
Yet another aspect of this saga is that the unanimous decision of the Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) was not given honor either by public sector entities—P&D and P3A—or CAP showing a dangerous trend that our communities do not pay heed to the sanctity of any institution. PEC is represented by the elected members and their unanimous decision holds high spirit in real terms.
The information gathered by ER shows that the engineering community and the contractors who do not support CAP’s point of view are most likely to react and of which approach to the courts seems imminent.n