"The policy must be developed through a broader consultative process, involving local communities as a primary stakeholder," read a statement issued by ACJCE on the day. "Dispossession, displacement, deprivation and disempowerment are all that the local people of Thar have gained in wake of land acquisition for coal power projects in their homeland," he said. Shah lamented that the ongoing land acquisition and resettlement processes in Thar was characterised by arbitrariness, exclusionary decision-making, non-transparency and extraordinary delays in payment of compensation amounts. Advocate Syed Ghazenfur, a representative of the Alternative Law Collective (ALC), pointed out that laws like the Land Acquisition Act 1894, under which land acquisition was taking place in Thar, were relics of Pakistan's colonial past. Terming the land acquisition and resettlement processes in Thar as highly lopsided, he lamented that the government was prioritising commercial interests of private companies over basic human rights of its citizens.

Source: The Express Tribune November 25, 2020 05:03 UTC