Thar Desert Rajasthan is a major opium production and consumption area. The Indira Gandhi Canal irrigates northwestern Rajasthan while the Government of India has started a centrally sponsored Desert Development Program based on watershed management with the objective of preventing the spread of desert and improving the living conditions of people in the desert. In the last 15–20 years, the Rajasthan desert has seen many changes, including a manifold increase of both the human and animal population. Animal husbandry has become popular due to the difficult farming conditions. At present, there are ten times more animals per person in Rajasthan than the
Thar coalfield Thar coalfield The Thar coalfield is located in Thar Desert, Tharparkar District of Sindh province in Pakistan. The deposits—16th-largest coal reserves in the world, were discovered in 1991 by Geological Survey of Pakistan (GSP) and the United States Agency for International Development. Pakistan has emerged as one of the leading countries—seventh in the list of top 20 countries of the world after the discovery of huge lignite coal resources in Sindh. The economic coal deposits of Pakistan are restricted to Paleocene and Eocene rock sequences. It is one of the world's largest lignite deposits discovered by GSP in 1990s, spread