Coal rush: The impacts of coal power generation on Tharis’ land rights

The study titled ‘Coal rush: The impacts of coal power generation on Tharis’ land rights’ is about the dispossession of Tharis, the indigenous people of Thar, in wake of recent coal rush in their native desert homeland, Tharparkar district of Sindh province. It covers 10 villages falling both within and outside the Thar coalfield blocks, the local population of which has been experiencing the violations and injustices committed by the national and international coal power companies and other proponents of Thar Coal in land acquisition for the development of coal mines, coal-fueled thermal power plants and the related infrastructure. The report gives (1) a historic overview of the colonial laws, polices and settlement processes dealing with land in Thar and their continuity in postcolonial time before the advent of coal power companies, (2) the traditional lifestyle and land use patterns of Tharis to survive in a desert region, (3) the ways the companies have been forcing Tharis to surrender their land, and (4) the stories of local people’s sufferings due to ongoing land acquisition and resettlement processes and their resistance against the highhandedness of coal power companies.

Read the complete study and its summary on the links below.