According to a local daily, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) intends to establish a 1200-megawatt coal-based power plant at Gadiani, Balochistan. To my utter disgust, this power plant will be running not on our indigenous coal but on coal being imported from Australia, South Africa, and Indonesia for which interested parties have already given the rate of $ 70 per metric ton. Pakistan is not short of coal as Sindh alone has the second largest coal reverses in the world i.e. 185 billion metric tons (second to United States). The discovery of Thar coal was first reported in 1992. However, despite almost two decades, it has remained untapped. Reasons obviously are federal governments' uncalled for interference, inept handling of Sindh government and above all WAPDA's unreasonable attitude. All said and done it is ironic that the country endowed with world's largest coal reservoir is importing coal from other countries. This is great injustice to the country as well as Sindh which is sitting on so much of black gold but deprived of its worth. -DAD MUHAMMAD BALOACH, Calgary, Canada, via e-mail, July 19.