Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that the completion of the LBOD (Left Bank Outfall Drain) scheme to provide water to Thar Coal Block-II is most important for further investment in the energy sector; therefore, appropriate technology for pre-treatment such as Reverse Osmosis (RO) or Membrane Bio Reactor (MBR) should be selected for the purpose as soon as possible.
This he said while presiding over a meeting regarding the installation of pre-treatment for a RO plant at Nabisar for Thar Coal Block-II here at of the CM House on Saturday.
The meeting was attended by Minister Energy Imtiaz Shaikh, Special Assistant to CM on irrigation Ashfaq Memon, Chairperson P&D Naheed Shah, Secretary Energy Musadiq Khan, Secretary Finance Najam Shah, Secretary Irrigation Dr Saeed Mangnijo, Khalid Masroor (CEO of HUBCO), Abul Fazal Rizvi (CEO SECMC), Saleemullah Memon (CEO TEL & ThalNova), Ahsan Zafar Syed (CEO Engro Energy), Haji Khan Jamali (Superintendent Engineer Irrigation Thar Coal Project) and other officers concerned.
The CM was told that the scheme of pre-treatment at Nabisar for Thar Coal Bloc-II was approved by the government at a cost of Rs3.25 billion. The scheme for pre-treatment was prepared to feed 60 cusecs of raw water to the RO plant. The design of pre-treatment was based on an ultra filtration basis.
Later, the work was stopped on the scheme and on the request of the SECMC (Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company) and other power companies, a revised scheme of Rs14.3 billion was prepared based on Membrane Bio Reactor (MBR) technology and it was designed for inflow of 75 cusecs.
The Planning & Development Department of the Sindh Government raised serious objections to a rise in the cost from Rs3.25 billion to Rs14.325 billion. Therefore, the matter was referred to the provincial cabinet. On the recommendation of the cabinet committee, NESPAK was hired as the third- party consultant for the recommendation of technology and financial review.
Now the power companies have requested that due to urgency for operation of power units, updated ultra filtration technology for the discharge of 75 cusecs raw water should be approved as it would also save the time required by the consultant.
The water quality required for the pre-treatment plant should have certain parameters such as biochemical oxygen demand (BODs), chemical oxygen demand (COD), suspended solids (SS), total nitrogen (TN), ammonia nitrogen (NH4+), feed water fouling index, free chlorine, Iron and manganese.
The CM directed Minister Energy Imtiaz Shaikh to call a joint meeting of power companies, SECMC and NESPAK to discuss and select the technology on an urgent basis. “I am also of the view that we should resolve this matter so that the operation of power plants being installed there can be started,” he said.
Shah said that major achievement had been made by launching 660MWs Thar Coal power plants, but “we have to expand this generation by installing more plants”.
Thar, he said, was the future of Pakistan and they had to work on it more effectively and efficiently.
