MITHI: The top executive of the firm that has undertaken coal exploration for power generation in the Thar coal project sites on Sunday tried to address the strong reservations being expressed by residents of Islamkot and its adjoining areas over the laying of a water reservoir, feared to contain hazardous elements threatening human life and land fertility.

Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company chief executive officer Shamsuddin A. Shaikh arrived at Thar Press Club in Mithi and held a press conference to allay the fear.

He said he was there to assure the protesting people that whatever his company would do in the area would be in the best interest of theirfuture and beneficial to the district in respect of development.

He held out the assurance that for the laying of the reservoir, the company would not displace any legal inhabitant of the area, and said that a 37km-long water pipeline was being laid to supply 37 cusecs daily to the area from the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD).

The CEO said his company was ready to hold talks and consider compensation to be paid to any affected individual if relevant documents in support of claims were provided to it. He said that for most of the land being used for the reservoir, the company had already deposited the amount with the revenue department.

He said the water reservoir would be completed by Oct 2017 and it would have an efflu-ent disposal scheme.

Mr Shaikh said that after one year of operation, the coal explored at Thar would be much cheaper than the imported coal. He said that a feasible study confirmed that mining at Thar was technically, economically and environmentally viable. Only block-II reserves could be used to produce 5,000 MW for 50 years, he added.

Economically, he said, this $2 billion project of Thar would surely bring multi-faceted benefits for the people of the impoverished region.

The project would open up employment and entrepreneurial opportunities while development and industrialisation would bring about a marked improvement in the socio-economic conditions of Thar, he added.

Meanwhile, residents of the Thar coal pro-ject sites and their adjoining areas continued their protest outside the Islamkot Press Club for the 23rd consecutive day on Sunday against the construction of the reservoir. If the site of the water reservoir was not changed, more than 12 villages and thousands of acres of their agriculture and grazing lands would be destroyed, they apprehended.

They repeated their view that the subsoil water to be stored in the over 2,500-acre reservoir would adversely affect the ecology and the environment in thousands of acres of the land of this district.

They urged the Sindh government to persuade the company to change the site of the reservoir to a place away from population and cultivable lands for which alternative sites had already been identified.