Having a large population should not be a major problem when a country is enriched with natural resources. Our dear homeland Pakistan is blessed with a variety of natural resources and we should make use of them in order to make the country self-reliant.
1: It has been estimated that Thar coal reserves have 175 billion tones of coal, which is equivalent to 618 billion barrels of crude oil as recently reconfirmed.
2: Pakistan has fifth largest deposits throughout the world consisting of gold and copper reserves in Reko Dig in Balochistan. Besides this, copper ore and gold deposits have already been found at Saindak in large quantities.
3: Natural gas reserves are also abundant in Pakistan. Estimated reserves are 885.3 billion cubic meters (as of January 2009). Gas fields are expected to last for another 20 years.
4: About 28 percent of Pakistan’s total land area is under cultivation. Pakistan has one of the largest irrigation man-made systems in the world. The most important crops are cotton, wheat, rice, sugarcane, maize, sorghum, millets, pulses, oil seeds, barley, fruits and vegetables. Apart from this, under the barren mountains of Balochistan and hot sands of Sindh, there are unlimited amount of oil and gas reserves not touched yet.
These are only some of the natural resources. In other words, we have a lot but finally we have nothing. We eat the apple and leave nothing for our public to eat. To get the proper benefits of natural resources present in our country, we must ensure that reserves are put to use.
AJAY KUMAR,
Karachi, May 16.