MITHI: Special assistant to Sindh chief minister Dr Khatoo Mal Jeevan has said it will be next to impossible to change present site of the water reservoir being constructed at Gorano village against which villagers have been protesting for more than a month.

The site was selected after the government and the Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company failed to spot a suitable place for the reservoir in entire Thar, he said while talking to journalists in Islamkot on Sunday.

Dr Jeevan, who was also an MPA and leader of Pakistan Peoples Party, said the chief minister had formed a three-member committee comprising him, Senator Gayanchand and provincial minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla to talk to the protesters and allay their fears. The committee would soon hold talks with the protesters to persuade them to end protest, he said.

He said all villagers would be provided modern facilities in case of their displacement. The Sindh government and the mining company had already paid compensation to almost all landowners whose land had been acquired, he said.

Meanwhile, the villagers resumed protest on the 39th consecutive day on Sunday outside the Islamkot press club against the reservoir.

Advocate Leela Ram and others who led the protest rejected the chief minister’s committee and vowed to continue the struggle till the dam’s site was changed.

They said the construction of the reservoir on 15 acres would destroy 12 villages and their agricultural land. Environmentalists had rejected the project over its impact on human lives, they said.

They urged the government to act in the light of various studies carried out by environmentalists about the impact of such mega projects.

Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2016