Experts urge govt, SECMC to resolve controversial Gorano Dam issue

Environment experts and rights activists have urged the government and the company running the Thar Coal Project to resolve the controversy surrounding the Gorano Dam in a way which is in the best interests of the natives and does not interfere with the country’s development agenda.

A day-long consultation titled ‘Understanding Development in Thar’ was organised by the National Commission of Human Rights in the city on Wednesday to engage the multiple stakeholders in discussions on the concerns and issues surrounding the development of coal fields in Thar, the Gorano Dam meant to provide fresh water to the project as well as the environmental and social impact on the region. 

Experts and activists as well as officials of the Sindh government and Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) – the firm running the mining project – were in attendance.   NCHR Chairperson Justice (retd) Ali Nawaz Chowhan said Tharparkar has been neglected; the people live in abject poverty while the government stays oblivious to their basic problems.

According to Chowhan, he has visited the region twice since he took charge at NCHR in 2015 and found rampant maladministration and insufficient healthcare facilities in Thar. He said he had also met the affectees of Gorano Dam and had found that the locals’ concerns about the dam’s environmental impact are very reasonable.

“Development needs to be linked with the welfare of the local people, rather than standing contrary to their wellbeing”, he said.  At the event’s first session titled ‘Coal Mining: Understanding impact of communities and climate’, Dr Sono Khanghrani, a development expert and the CEO of the Thardeep Micro Finance, and Ali Akbar Rahimoon, a Thar community leader, expressed apprehensions over the dam’s construction saying it would cause unprecedented devastation in the Thar desert.

Khanghrani said the project will not affect only Islamkot and Mithi but the entire district.  “There is no visible government activity. We don’t see any legitimate body to resolve issues, such as compensations, of local residents who were affected by the dam’s construction,” he said. “We are being told that this project will provide over 50,000 jobs but it is not yet known how many locals would actually be employed since they are mostly unskilled people and no such trainings are being given to them.” 

Rahimoon, the local activist, said his community was not against development in Thar, but it should not be pursued at the cost of life and livelihood of native people. “We fear we will lose our homes and clean air and it is because we are powerless,” he lamented. 

Shamsuddin A. Shaikh, the CEO of the SECMC, said that the project which is a part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), is pivotal for the progress of Sindh and the country as a whole since it will help address electricity shortages and reduce its cost.

Shaikh termed the concerns being raised by activists and locals as “mere propaganda run by NGOs”. He said the company had prepared a resettlement plan and sent it to the government, which has approved it.

“We consider the local residents as the project’s beneficiaries, not affectees, and the resettlement plan is very comprehensive, unlike the affectees of other dams, such as Tarbela or Mangla,” the SECMC’s chief claimed, adding that 77 percent of the workforce would be Tharis. 

Shaikh added that the Thar Foundation, an organisation the SECMC formed, has been working for the betterment of the people of Tharparkar through interventions in the fields of education, healthcare, livelihood and infrastructure. 

In a second session titled ‘Coal Mining in Thar: Issues, challenges and mitigation plans’, prominent urban planner Arif Hasan said that there was no comprehensive plan for resettlement and because of that, it would be very difficult to design a mitigation policy.

“It is clear that the project cannot give jobs to all Tharis and thus it will lead to migration to urban centres and Thar will become dependent on the remittance economy,” Hasan said. 

Advocate Rafay Alam, a Lahore-based prominent environmental lawyer, in his presentation explained a number of laws related to the environment, while Advocate Leela Ram, a community leader, talked about the community movement against Gorano Dam’s construction.

Agha Wasif, the Sindh Department of Energy Secretary, said the Sindh government had invested huge sums of money in building infrastructure in Thar district through its Annual Development Programme.

In third and last session titled ‘Future strategies and way forwards”, Professor Nauman Ahmed from NED University, said that the affected people must be compensated properly.

“About 50 years back Tarbela Dam project was completed, but there are still many people, who have not received compensation,” he pointed out. “For development, a strong institutional arrangement and structure is essential which is absent in case of Thar coal project”, he said. MPAs Mahtab Akbar Rashdi and Mahesh Kumar Malani also spoke on the occasion.