Daily Times

MITHI: The controversial Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC), which is executing the coal mining in Block II of the Thar coal fields in Tharparkar, has released highly contaminated waste water, which extracted from Thar coal site into protected grazing land near Gorano village in Tharparkar. The locals fear that this contaminated water will not only destroy the fertile agricultural lands, but also more than 200,000 indigenous trees will be destroyed completely.

Located at around 27 kilometers away from the Thar Coal Block II, Gorano is centuries old village with a huge grazing land locally known as Gauchar or the place for the grazing of cows, allotted by British Raj for the local communities, as most of the locals in Thar Desert are attached with livestocks for their living. This grazing land comprises over 15000 acres of land, surrounded by sand dunes and is used by local for agriculture and grazing of their animals. But powerful coal company has selected this site as dumping site for the highly contaminated wastewater to be extracted from Thar Coal site and contaminated with salts and mineral wastewater. Not only has this but the coal company also started calling it “Gorano Dam” which legally can not be declared as dam.

The local residents have expressed a grave concerns over the releasing of the wastewater into bulk and they said that it will destroy the area, which already is suffering with natural disasters like drought for past many years.

Residents of Gorano and some other villages of Tharparkar on Friday expressed their deep concern over release of wastewater into the controversial reservoir being built across their lands.

“It is toxic water taken from the coal mine and by releasing it near our villages, will be the biggest disaster in near future,” said Advocate Leela Ram, who is heading a movement against so-called controversial dam. He said that the matter is in the court and before any verdict comes, the coal company has started releasing water into the protected grazing land.

He demanded federal and provincial government to look into the matter and give justice to the residents of more than 15 villages to be suffer from this wastewater, majority of them are Hindu minority community.

On other hand an official of SECMC while talking to Daily Times claimed that the wastewater is not contaminated and the company is officially given permission to release the water in this area.