Thar coalfield The area is accessible by a 410-kilometre metalled road from Karachi to Islamkot via Hyderabad-Mirpur Khas-Naukot and Thatta-Badin-Mithi-Islamkot. A road network connecting all the major towns with Thar Coalfield have been developed. The rail link from Hyderabad is up to Naukot, which is about 100 kilometres from Islamkot. Thar coalfield is a part of the Thar Desert of Pakistan, the ninth-largest desert in the world. It is bounded in the north, east and south by India, in the west by flood plains of the Indus River. The terrain is sandy and rough with sand dunes forming the topography. The relief
Thar Desert lower one third crown is lopped. The leaves are of high nutritive value. Feeding of the leaves during winter when no other green fodder is generally available in rain-fed areas is thus profitable. The pods have a sweetish pulp and are also used as fodder for livestock. "Prosopis cineraria" is most important top feed species providing nutritious and highly palatable green as well as dry fodder, which is readily eaten by camels, cattle, sheep and goats, constituting a major feed requirement of desert livestock. Locally it is called "Loong". Pods are locally called "sangar" or "sangri". The dried pods locally