Eighteen years ago, Ganuhar Khan Jakhro’s family was one of the better off landowning families of Jhimpir. The land was plentiful but they usually cultivated 250 acres of arid agriculture land. They used to cultivate sesame, green gram  (moong), sorghum (jowar) and cluster beans (guar) on their land. Last time, they cultivated these crops was in 2007. That year, Jakhro’s family income from guar alone was Rs2m.

He has got the market receipts of that year with him even now.
But things changed in 2007 when the wind energy (wind power) companies came to the village, took possession of his land and destroyed his standing crops. 

Ganuhar Khan Jakhro shared this information with Lok Sujag while sitting with some people in the village of Malhar Jakhro, a suburb of Jhimpir. This village is named after his grandfather. He has never gone to school and does not remember dates, referring to seasons and events when mentioning months and years.  Ganuhar Khan does not remember his age.

When asked about his age, Ganuhar Khan, adjusting the Sindhi cap with sparkling beads on it, takes his national identity card from his pocket and hands it over.

Another farmer, Muhammad Imran Khaskheli (Kohistani), is a resident of Khaskheli locality in Jhimpir town. He claims that three wind energy companies have occupied his 170 acres of land, which is in the name of his father Jamaluddin Kohistani.

Not only Ganuhar Khan or Muhammad Imran Kohistani, there are many claimants  who say that their land were occupied by the wind energy companies without paying any compensation.

36 wind power projects in Sindh produce 1,845MW

While searching for new sources of energy, the Pakistan Meteorological Department and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory of the US identified an area of 9,700 sq km in northeast of Karachi at the distance of 120km from the city where strong sea winds blow.

This area of Thatta district consists of a strip of about 160km long and about 60km wide from Gharo city to Jhimpir village, which is now called Gharo Jhampir Wind Corridor.

Some areas of Jamshoro, Keti Bandar, Badin, Hyderabad and Tharparkar in Sindh are in addition to this.

The National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) currently has a total of 36 wind projects of about two dozen companies, including three foreign ones, operating in Sindh, of which five projects are in Gharo, 30 in Jhimpir and one in Jamshoro.

These wind energy companies have got licenses to generate electricity ranging from 30 to 99 MW, some of which are also operating one and some four power plants. The total installed capacity of these wind energy plants is about 1,845 MW.

Jhimpir’s wind power is fed into the national transmission grid through grid stations located 35km away in Nooriabad. According to information received from the grid, 1,000MW of electricity has been taken from the wind plants until the last week of April.

Engineer Irfan Ahmed, an expert in alternative energy, says that 400GW (four hundred thousand megawatts) of wind power can be generated in Pakistan’s coastal belt. However, this electricity will be available only if wind turbines etc. would be manufactured domestically.

Land on 30-year lease for wind power projects

The government had decided in 2007 to use this corridor for wind power generation, for which domestic and foreign companies were invited to invest.

According to a policy paper by World Wind Energy, the Sindh government started work on these projects under the Federal Renewable Energy Policy 2006, under which land was offered to companies for setting up wind power plants. Later, this facility was secured by issuing the Sindh Land Grant Policy for Renewable Energy Projects 2015.

According to records received from the Deputy Commissioner's Office Thatta, the Sindh Land Utilization Department in this district had given 33,976 acres of government land to the Alternative Energy Development Board (currently the Private Power and Infrastructure Board) on a 30-year lease, which was sub-leased to wind companies.

However, the locals could not present any documentary evidence in support of their claim, but they insist that the companies, including the Jang Shahi land, have more than 52,000 acres of land.

Along the mountainous area of Thatta, Jamshoro and Malir is called Kohistan where there is no canal system, people cultivate crops with the help of rainwater coming from mountain drains.

The officials of the Sindh Revenue Department say that very few people in the three aforementioned districts have land registries or transfers (registration on Form Seven) in their names. While all the land in Kohistan, which falls in Jamshoro district and Thatta, is owned by the government.

The officials say that the locals consider these lands as their property because they have been cultivating them here for decades.

Victims helpless in face of companies, their lawyers and government

Muhammad Imran Khaskheli rejects the authorities’ claim that land in Kohistan is not private property. He says that his land is registered in his name (on the seventh form).

Showing Agricultural Development Bank Ltd documents, he says that his father had taken a loan for a tractor on this land in 1983, which he paid in installments and got the land papers back in 2013.

Ganuhar Khan says that he had initially approached the Thatta Sessions Court against the seizure of his land. The court issued a stay order and the company's work stopped.

“A local officer from the Alternative Energy Board and an official from a foreign company came to me two or three times. They offered me monthly payment and jobs for people if I withdrew the case but I refused their offer.”

A few years later, Ganuhar Khan was sent to jail on terrorism charges. He does not remember how long he was in jail but his co-accused (a university graduate and writer) Muhammad Bakhsh Brohi has got the record.

According to the record, this case number 2013/5 was registered on June 26, 2013, on the government’s complaint after a phone complaint by Arif, an employee of Three Gorges Wind Company.

Ganuhar Jakhro was released by the Anti-Terrorism Court, Hyderabad a month later, but the case continued in the District and Sessions Court, Thatta, for a year. He says in the land grabbing case too, big lawyers from the company as well as government appeared one day and got the stay against the land occupation vacated.

Muhammad Imran Khaskheli’s case is pending. According to him, the companies hire expensive lawyers and the case is not heard for months. He asks the big question, “Can we fight the government and capitalists?”

No compensation for land but peanuts from influential people 

Seeing the helplessness of the residents of the wind corridor, political activists of Jhimpir founded the Kohistan Bachao Action Committee in 2007 and launched a movement for the rights of the victims from this platform, which is still going on.

Shah Muhammad Chang is the main figure of this movement and a direct victim of the wind power companies. He says that about a hundred small and large settlements of Union Council Jhimpir and Jangshahi fall within the limits of wind turbines. The biggest loss and problem here is that the land of local landowners has been taken away for wind energy plants.

“Even if the land is owned by the government, the local people have been cultivating it for generations. Their livelihood was taken away, but the government or the companies did not pay any proper compensation. However, some victims were paid by influential people under hand to remain silent and some were silenced by giving them small jobs.”

Ganuhar Khan confirms that 32 people from his village were employed by the company for a year but were then laid off.

Shah Muhammad Chang says the country is getting clean energy, companies and the Sindh government are getting profits, but what have some people in Jhimpir got except small jobs?

The Sindh government is not spending anything on welfare here, while the companies provide one teacher each for 10 schools in Jhimpir and some water tankers.

“We have three demands. We demand compensation for the affected lands, employment for the locals and spending of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds on providing basic amenities to the local population,” says Chang.

Unclear policy on corporate social responsibility

The government policy on corporate social responsibility (CSR) regarding alternative energy companies in Pakistan is unclear.

By the way, for a time, corporate social responsibility was considered an ethical and voluntary measure of social welfare but many countries, including the US, the UK and Denmark, had to enact legislation to implement it. In

India, companies are required to spend two percent of their profits on social welfare.

In Pakistan, under the Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility) General Order 2009, every company is required to report its corporate social responsibility activities every year and include them in its audit report.

These responsibilities include philanthropy, environmental protection measures, community investment and welfare schemes, rural development programs, etc., in addition to the company’s internal welfare duties.

Dr Ameer Abro, a professor of sociology at Sindh University, Jamshoro, has conducted a study on CSR activities of alternative energy projects for the non-governmental organization CSSP (Civil Society Support Program), which included wind and solar projects in Jhimpir and Bahawalpur.

He says that the government policy on CSR regarding alternative energy companies at the provincial and federal levels in Pakistan is not clear.

In Jhimpir, the companies are directly providing drinking water tankers and teachers in schools in some villages from the CSR fund (welfare and improvement of the local population). But systematic projects and works for water, health, education and roads have not been observed.