In order to efficiently run government-owned Reverse Osmosis (RO) Plants across Sindh, the provincial Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) has sought Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC)'s technical assistance for capacity building of its officials.

According to a press release issued here Tuesday, SECMC would train 468 engineering officials in batches enabling them to efficiently run RO Plants across Sindh on modern grounds.

In phase one of the 100 mid-level officials, two batches of 25 PHED officials have already undergone the hands-on technical training in Thar Block II of Islamkot Taluka of district Tharparkar. Trainees were not only imparted theoretical classes but also shown 18 RO plants being operated by Thar Foundation (TF).

SECMC is a joint venture company between the Government of Sindh and Engro Energy Limited (EEL) founded in 2008 tasked to mine from the Block II of the Thar coalfield in Tharparkar. Government of Sindh owns 54.7% of the company shares, while the management of the project is fully done by EEL, a subsidiary of Engro Corporation.

PHED had requested SECMC to provide training to their 468 engineering officials on the water treatment technology especially on managing RO Plants. SECMC conducted training of the first two batches of 50 PHED (Government of Sindh) Engineers through a team of professionals' engineers led by Syed Murtaza Azhar Rizvi.

During the training sessions, participants were introduced with the general overview of water treatment technologies followed by detailed designing, costing and simulating RO Plants and field visits.

Upon completion of the training program for the batch I and II, the participants were awarded certificates by Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the SECMC, Syed Abul Fazal Rizvi and Director Site Operations, Syed Murtaza Azhar Rizvi.

Speaking at the occasion, Secretary PHED, Niaz Abbasi, has said that the training program is helping department officials to learn classroom-based theoretical models and hands-on RO plant operations at the site.

'The public-private collaboration program will help our officials to seek professional knowledge of the plants run by a private sector firm in an efficient manner,' he said.

Addressing the trainees, Syed Abul Fazal Rizvi, CEO SECMC highlighted the core joint objective of both PHED and SECMC/TF of arranging this training session to share the technical experience. He added that they were always available to facilitate Govt. of Sindh to run these plants effectively so that the basic need of the drinking water shall be fulfilled in the district of Tharparkar and all over Sindh.

Murtaza Azhar Rizvi, Director Site Operations, SECMC was of the view that they are running 18 RO Plants in its operational area serving a population of 40,000 who are getting WHO-compliant drinking water.

© Pakistan Press International, source Asianet-Pakistan