HYDERABAD: Approximately 4,000 people living in coastal villages within the district of Thatta are set to benefit from the installation of four RO plants, which have become critical requirements for these areas after several years. These plants are Community-Based Reverse Osmosis Filtration Plants, and these have been installed in the region by the Sindh Community Foundation (SCF) with the support of the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF).

Where the RO Plants in Thatta Have Been Built

Under the Restoration of Social Services and Climate Change Resilience Project, solar-powered reverse osmosis water treatment systems have been installed in the villages of Khamiso Samo, Bodo Redhar, Suleman Samo, and Adam Lashari, which are situated in Union Councils Bijora and Garho. The villages identified for this project included the installation of four RO plants by SCF in the district of Thatta. This process involved prioritizing the schemes through participatory Village Development Plans, developed with active community participation.

Representatives of SCF conducted monitoring visits to four villages where community consultation meetings were convened. At these consultation meetings, representatives of SCF assessed the ongoing construction activities together with the Village Organization. The local communities were content with the quality of the ongoing work and the progress made in construction. These facilities will be officially inaugurated and transferred to the communities shortly.

According to Javed Hussain, Executive Director at SCF, coastal communities have witnessed increasing threats such as saltwater intrusion into brackish groundwater sources, elevated levels of TDS, and reduced freshwater resources. “Safe drinking water is now one of the biggest issues facing coastal communities,” Mr Hussain noted.

The project will soon be completed and supply safe drinking water to almost 4,000 residents. According to Mr Hussain, there was an urgent requirement to replicate the scheme across other vulnerable coastal regions of Thatta district.

Community engagement played an essential part in the planning and implementation phase of the project, according to Yaqoob Ahmed Brohi, who heads up SCF as its Project Manager. The same level of commitment towards engaging communities is expected to ensure sustainability moving forward, especially considering the nature of these reverse osmosis plants. In a press statement released earlier this week, it became evident that these four RO plants in Thatta district will serve as community assets.

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According to Mubarak Samo, president of the Village Organization in Khamiso Samo village, the provision of potable water was among the major requirements faced by the community, as women and children were required to travel far to obtain water despite having saline groundwater resources within the village premises. The installation of these RO plants is expected to ease the burden faced by women and children in these coastal villages for many years.

The representatives from communities have promised to take full responsibility for the running, maintaining, and securing of the RO plants post-delivery of the plant to them. This is in line with an increasing trend among development organizations that involve the adoption of a model where communities own infrastructure projects and ensure that they benefit from them for many years into the future.