The Soda Ash Plant

Pakistan's most powerful unaccountable body just handed a water-scarce district's public resources to one of the country's wealthiest conglomerates.

Lucky Core Industries exports soda ash to the UAE, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bangladesh, Tanzania, and Afghanistan. Its plant in Khewra, District Jhelum, has been running since 1944 and now produces 560,000 tonnes per year. It announced in July 2024 that it is expanding by another 200,000 tonnes. Olympia Chemicals, whose primary manufacturing unit…