oal mining and coal-based power generation in Tharparkar have devastated local livelihoods at a large scale. A study conducted by the Policy Research Institute for Equitable Development (PRIED), an Islamabad-based independent think tank, for instance, shows that around 23,000 people have seen their sources of livelihood drastically dwindle in just 10 local villages since the coal development began in the district around a decade ago. The actual scale of the loss is much larger because the authors of the study did not have time and resources to collect data from all the villages affected by coal development. The numbers showcased in the graphics that follow, taken as they are from PRIED’s study, are, therefore, only symbolic and symptomatic and not fully representative of the overall livelihood losses experienced by the coal-affected communities in Tharparkar.
