Pakistan could have avoided the adverse effects of the high cost of petroleum products including petrol, diesel and furnace oil, if it had avoided over reliance on petroleum based products for generating thermal power and had instead given encouragement to use indigenously produced coal in power generation, reports UPP correspondent. The conversion of the Pakistan Railways to diesel engines instead of coal engines resulted in growing use of diesel by the railways and the discarding of coal for running railway engines while in India nearly 50 percent of railway engines still run on coal. The use of diesel in place of coal resulted in widespread use of petroleum products in the road transport. The government also established thermal power plants in which oil was used instead of coal. As a result, the required growth of the coal mining industry in the country did not take place. The government at the federal and provincial level also neglected the promotion of the coal mining industry and its increase in annual production was also minimal. Experts have pointed out that several warnings were given by the concerned officials against excessive usage of petroleum based products including diesel. As a result, the coal mining in Pakistan did not develop to the needed extent. In spite of various advances in removal of sulphur content from coalmines in Pakistan, large-scale employment of this technical facility for improving quality of coal was also not used by the authorities. The development of the Thar coal deposits was also over delayed by the authorities in Pakistan. Details collected by UPP correspondent shows that various efforts by geologists in the country, including the stalwarts of the Geological Department of Pakistan to coax government into developing the Thar coal deposits as early as 1962 did not register. Government should go in for coal development in Pakistan on a larger scale and use it as the raw material for producing thermal energy. Copyright United Press of Pakistan, 2008