Making sense of Duddar lead-zinc mining project.

Byline: Muhammad Akbar Notezai

AT the end of December, the weather in the Duddar area is pleasant unlike the chilly weather of Quetta, which was minus four degrees Celsius on the day we leave. The reason: Lasbela district, where the Duddar lead-zinc mining project is located, is one of the warmest places in Balochistan.

After ten hours of journey, two lights appear on top of a mammoth sun-bleached mountain from a far-off location on the road, which connects Windar town in Lasbela with the project.

A group of journalists from Quetta, including this reporter, was invited on Dec 28 to attend a celebration ceremony of the project for achieving the annual full capacity with 500,000 tonnes, organised by the Chinese mining firm MCC Huaye Duddar Mining Company.

But the picture one got to see afterwards of Kanraj tehsil, the Duddar project's location, speaks volumes about the state of affairs confronting the area. Despite the fact that Lasbela is the home district of Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan Alyani, and his father and grandfather also held the same post, in the words of a local reporter, 'Kanraj is one of the most deprived tehsils of Lasbela'.

The picture one gets to see of its location speaks volumes about problems confronting the area

Next day, after the ceremony, Chinese and Pakistani delegations are welcomed by the workers visiting the main project site which is said to be the first such underground mining project in Pakistan with a 7.5-metre diameter shaft of one kilometre depth, comprising a network of mini-tracks to extract the lead-zinc ores out of the mouth of the mountain. The shaft is just like a well believed to be containing high volume of hazardous gases which gushes out of the mountain through tiny holes.

Due to complex nature of underground mining, it is said that the mountain is sinking. Armed with this question, I am heading to meet Nawaz Khan, senior vice president of MRDL (MCC Resource Development Limited) and a mining engineer who has been associated with the project since day one.

In his 80s, dressed elegantly with a sweater, coat and muffler...