While the media can continue its old rhetoric, the already commissioned RO plants have revolutionised life in Thar
KARACHI: What a pity that your report “Thar’s thirst: the Tharis and their worries” (December 26) failed to see the two million gallons per day of water that is provided through a solar powered RO plant at Mithi. The plant and its slanting roof covered with solar panels are visible from many kilometers on the Naukot-Mithi highway. Water will no longer be pumped up once a month from the canal at Naukot to Mithi as the plant shall meet the requirements of Mithi and 100 other villages in both directions by the already laid pipeline, i.e., Mithi to Naukot and Mithi to Islamkot. Operating at zero electricity cost, it shall produce the required two million gallons per day while running for only four to five hours a day.
The report also failed to mention any of the 150 solar RO plants of 10,000 gallons per day capacity each that have been built and commissioned from September 30 till now, besides a few 75,000 gallons per day capacity plants from where people are fetching excellent quality drinking water. Another 1.5 million gallon per day capacity plant is under construction at Islamkot. In addition, another 150 solar-operated plants with 10,000 gallons per day capacity are under construction, which will be operational by March 2015. In the next phase, another 450 solar RO plants shall become operational by September/October 2015, bringing the total to 750 solar RO plants in addition to the 85 put up earlier.
Water is crucial for both the 1.6 million inhabitants of Thar and for the seven million livestock, which all these plants will cater to. Thar is no longer depending on rain. We are utilising the inexhaustible 1.5 billion acre feet underground water and the sun. While the media can continue its old rhetoric, the already commissioned RO plants have revolutionised life in Thar. With the completion of the two phases of solar RO plants in September/October 2015, Thar shall, by far, be the highest rated district in Pakistan as far as quality of clean drinking water and its availability is concerned. Your story claimed that “almost every household has suffered the loss of at least one child”. There are more than 300,000 households in the area. Deprived of bajra that they grow when the rains come, 253,000 households are being supplied free wheat since March this year. The 1,100 kilometres of link roads built in Thar during the five years of our last tenure and the much-improved health facilities have put a basic health unit or a hospital within the reach of 90 per cent of the people of Thar. There is always a possibility, as anywhere else in Pakistan, that some parents depending on local remedies do not bring their children to hospital. The total number of reported deaths of children in our hospital records for the period ending on December 1 is 310. This is much below the national average. But still your report states that every family has lost at least one child.
Taj Haider
General Secretary
PPP Sindh
Published in The Express Tribune, December 28th, 2014.
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