When officials first arrived in villages near Qadirabad in 2014, they brought promises wrapped in the language of progress. The Sahiwal coal-fired power plant, they told residents, would be Pakistan’s flagship energy project — a 1,320 megawatt giant that would end electricity shortages and bring prosperity to central Punjab’s fertile heartland. They promised jobs, schools, hospitals and a brighter future.
In Village 76-5R, the local member of the provincial assembly and member of the National Assembly told farmers this was a “once-in-a-generation opportunity”. China was investing billions in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), they said, and Sahiwal would be at its centre. There would be 3,700 construction jobs and 1,600 permanent positions. Technical training centres would teach youth valuable skills. Girls’ schools would be built. A hospital with seven to 10 beds would serve the community. Roads connecting villages to markets would be paved. The three most-affected villages would receive free electricity.
What officials didn’t tell communities — what they conveniently left out — was that none of this would come to pass.
What they didn’t say was that fertile fields, cultivated since the British built the Canal Colonies in the 1800s, would become a wasteland of coal ash and contaminated water. They didn’t mention that families would watch their children struggle to breathe, their orchards wither and their groundwater sink deeper into the earth year after year.
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