KARACHI: Residents of Thar have expressed their concern over groundwater contamination being caused by coal-fired power plants in Thar is high.

According to the statement of Peoples’ Tribunal on Thar local water table is going down due to dewatering of coal-mines while, on the other hand, groundwater is being poisoned due to seepage from the wastewater disposal reservoirs in Gorano and Dukar Chou and reinjection of untreated water at Meghay-Jo-Tar, said Abdul Aziz Halepoto, one of the three panelists. “Even the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has acknowledged in a recent letter to Thar’s local communities that groundwater contamination being caused by coal-fired power plants in Thar is “high”, the members of the panel said. “The same letter has also recognized the fact that coal-mining operations in Thar are causing both “groundwater contamination and water stress”, he said, stressing that “we will raise the issue at every forum, including the Supreme Court, and resist the environmental and climate injustice being inflicted on the people and land of Thar”.

Maluko Meghwar, a resident of Meghay-Jo-Tar and a member of the panel, told the press that “SECMC was boasting of having installed 11 reverse osmosis (RO) plants to provide clean drinking water in Thar but, as a matter of fact, even water provided by RO plants is unfit for human consumption”, he said. “Children and women are especially affected by the polluted water coming out of RO plants,” he said.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023