I read two very disturbing news items in your newspaper on May 29.2010. One was headlined as Reko Diq to be run by Baloch experts and the other had a headline saying Ambassador for joint Pak-Chilean copper project. After mishandling of the Saindak Copper Gold Project in the nineties, we are in for more disasters in new millennium in the unfortunate mining sector of the country. There are no commercial copper mining experts in Balochistan; in fact, there is none even in Pakistan. As a consultant on the Saindak project, I had fought more than nine years to save the project but, ultimately, it was leased to the Chinese. Unless professional experts with commercial mining experience are involved, the mining sector in our country cannot be developed. The entire Board of Governors should be re-constituted to bring in individuals with commercial mining experience to negotiate the best possible deal for the province as mineral resources are a provincial subject. The same principle should, then, be applied to other mining deposits. Thar Coal would not produce energy either unless the coal is properly mined first. The challenge is of mining, not power generation. Since mining is tough, laborious and not so lucrative, no one seems interested in it. It seems no lessons have been learnt from the Saindak Project disaster. -DR FARID A MALIK, Lahore, May 30.