UMERKOT, Sept 8: Perturbed over government’s failure to comply with land acquisition rules and regulations and carry out environmental impact assessment, several growers of Tharparkar have reportedly forced contractors’ staff and workers to stop work on two mega projects having a collective estimated cost of Rs10 billion.

Work on both the projects — ‘Water carrier from Nabisar to Islamkot Thar coalfield’ and ‘Construction of water carrier from LBOD spinal drain RD-362 to Nabisar for Thar coal power generation units’ — has been started by contractors after getting a go-ahead from the government.

Since the project area involves several hundred acres of private lands in addition to the state-owned lands, several growers of the Nabisar area of Umerkot resisted execution of the projects arguing that government must issue notices to them under the relevant clauses of the land acquisition rules before starting the construction work.

One of the aggrieved growers, Bilawal Sarwar Dars, government was bound to serve notices to the affected landowners under Sections 4 and 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 prior to the execution of the work. “Heavy machinery along with manual workers all of a sudden started excavation and digging work on my and my family’s lands located in Deh Ranawah, near Nabisar Thar, in Kunri tehsil of Umerkot district,” he complained while speaking to Dawn.

“Permission to acquire private lands has to be taken from their owners, who also have to be paid a reasonable compensation,” he argued.

Another grower, Mr Mansoor, said that the projects would cause serious damage to around 200 acres belonging to Dars families and another 100 acres owned by the provincial livestock department.They said that canals being built for the Thar coal power plants would affects lands of several hundred growers. “No environment impact assessment has been carried out for the projects which is sheer violation of the relevant laws,” he said. He said the lands falling close to the new waterways would be vulnerable to serious hazards while crops, trees, orchards and structures would be destroyed. Above all, they apprehended a big population and their livestock would be displaced by the projects. The affected populations should be suitably compensated, they stressed.

They, along with many other growers of the project area through their individual applications appealed to the chief secretary and secretaries of the departments concerned, the Sindh Coal Authority, the Mirpurkhas commissioner, and others authorities to immediately stop the construction work and ensure that the relevant laws, rules and regulations were strictly complied with before executing the projects.

When contacted, project director Irshad Memon said that an environmental impact assessment had not been carried out because they were not new projects. “The new channels will carry effluents and other harmful liquids from the LBOD, which is already functioning. If the existing spinal drains have not caused any damage to the environment in the past, how will the new channels pose such a threat?”

Mr Memon, however, agreed that the landowners supposed to be affected by the project should be suitably compensated. “We have written to the Umerkot deputy commissioner to get the notices issued to such growers in order to begin the process of compensation and other formalities. It is the responsibility of the revenue department to determine prices of the lands to be acquired for the projects,” he added.

He acknowledged that some landlords had forced the staff and workers to stop the construction work at certain project sites. “We will look into the matter as the projects have to be executed and we are doing all this on a war-footing to cope with the deepening energy crisis,” he said.