MITHI: The Sindh government will invest Rs5.4 billion in installing 750 solar-powered reverse osmosis water purification plants across the sprawling desert district to facilitate over 1.5 million people.
The government said the facility were likely to start working by June this year.
Built at a cost of Rs400 million, the plant is expected to particularly benefit women, who currently often must fetch water from far-away hand-dug wells.
A local woman said people in the area often walk two kilometers a day to fetch water from a hand-dug well owned by a landlord outside the village. Local people said having water available for themselves, and their livestock, may stem increasing waves of migration from the area.
Barely 5 percent of the population has access to clean and disease-free potable water, according to a study by Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) and the Pakistan Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR). Access to useable water is a key problem in drought-hit Tharparkar.
A study found that the fluoride level at many locations in Tharparkar is at dangerous levels of over 13 mg/liter compared to the 1 mg/liter considered normal.
