SECMC holds successful experiment of fish farming in Tharparkar

Fish were bred in underground water pumped out during coal extraction

HYDERABAD: The Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) has successfully grown fish in Gorano reservoir in Tharparkar which became a subject of controversy due to a legal battle by local residents.

A ceremony was held on Saturday at the reservoir in Islamkot taluka in which fish caught from the 1,500-acre reservoir, which is being filled with subsoil water pumped out from the coalfield, was cooked and presented to the guests.

"The success of fish farming in Gorano speaks volumes of our stance that the underground water was in fact useful, and not hazardous as portrayed by [those who had] vested interests," said Shamsuddin Ahmed Shaikh, the chief operating officer of the SECMC, which is investing around $2 billion on coal extraction and power generation projects in Tharparkar.

"This coupled with the bio-saline agriculture are a revolution in the livelihood sector of Tharparkar," Shaikh said. He added that the company aimed to put the underground water to the best use of the local communities who could breed different species of fish in it as their potential livelihood.



According to him, fisheries experts also tested samples in their laboratories and results showed that the reservoir water was conducive to fish farming on a large scale.

"We hold it sacred that the local communities should have the maximum livelihood opportunities in the coal extraction and power generation projects and their offshoots," the SECMC CEO said.

The incharge of the SECMC's fish farming initiative, Hafiz Shakeel Ujjan, explained that they released around 100,000 small fishes of various species as seeds in the reservoir. "The fish raised in Gorano are purely organic as no artificial chemical has been used in their breeding," he said. According to Ujjan, the local communities could include fish in their diet, besides catching and selling them for livelihood.

The news of successful fish farming in Tharparkar was also delightful for its residents. "It was not even in our wildest dreams that fish farming will be done in our water-starved Tharparkar, especially as an industry," said Hamid Dahot, a resident of Gorano.