HYDERABAD, June 13: Project director of the Right Bank Outfall Drain Bashir Dahar has claimed that saline water of the drain will not get mixed with the River Indus water because the full supply level of the RBOD will be below the natural surface level of the river from Sehwan to Gharo.

Briefing a team of journalists in Sehwan on Thursday after a day-long visit of different sites of the RBOD in Dadu district, he said that Rs200 million and not Rs45 million, as reported in the press, was released to contractors as advance payment.

He pointed out that the RBOD was a Rs14 billion project spread over 273 kilometres and would contain 2,271 cusecs of saline water to be released into the sea in stage-1. He said that RBOD was to be completed by January 2006 and in its final stage it would release 7,900 cusecs of saline water into the Arabian Sea.

Denying that material of the RBOD was washed by the river water, he said that at this point work was undertaken to divert flow of the river for creating path of the RBOD.

Mr Dahar said that there would be proper dressing and lining of the RBOD wherever required.

Ruling out any possibility of seepage of saline water which might lead to mixing up of the river water with saline water, he said that embankments of the River Indus would be raised.

He said that the project would be helpful for discharge of effluent, collected on the right bank the Indus at the Sukkur Barrage, which controlled the Rice, Dadu and NWC canals but had no drainage system.

He said that Wapda wanted to discharge the effluent near Sehwan, which would have destroyed ecology and agricultural land and also affected quality of water.

The project was being executed according to approved plan under PC-1, he said and dismissed reports that land of growers would be destroyed on account of mixing up of the river water with saline water of the RBOD.