ISLAMABAD, April 8: The Indus River System Authority (Irsa) will revise on Wednesday (April 10) the provincial water share for kharif in view of raising Mangla Dam storage level by 10 feet (from 1,202 to 1,212 feet), official sources told Dawn here on Monday.

In a related move, Irsa has informed the Chief Executive Secretariat that around 5,000 cusec additional water would be made available to Sindh provided it was later re-adjusted to Punjab.

The CE office had asked Irsa to comment whether additional 5,000 cusec water could be provided to Sindh during the month of April on the pattern of last year. “We neither said yes nor no. We responded in a diplomatic way,” said an Irsa official, adding that Irsa told the CE office that if Sindh could return the equivalent quantity to Punjab in late kharif only then 5,000 cusec water would be provided to it. As of Monday, Sindh was receiving water from downstream Panjnad and would continue to get it for next 10 days, officials said.

To be presided over by Irsa chairman Noor Mohammad Baloch, the advisory committee meeting of the authority would be attended by all the Irsa members, provincial irrigation and agriculture secretaries, representatives of the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) and chief engineering advisor of the federal government, besides chief engineer and secretary of Irsa.

Irsa Secretary Sohail A. Khan told Dawn that the advisory committee would ratify decisions taken by the technical committee on March 27, which included filling of Mangla Dam and raising its water level from 1,202 feet to 1,212 feet.

He said the advisory committee would also get future projections from the provinces about their requirements and finalise projections for water availability and distribution among them. Mangla Dam, he added, was being filled since April 1 on proportional basis.

Another official said Wapda had not yet issued a notification about raising the Mangla Dam storage level to 1,212 feet and unless it was issued before the meeting, Irsa would not be able to make future allocations on the basis of revised water availability.

Accordingly, Wapda has been asked by Irsa to issue a notification so that it could finalise allocations for kharif, keeping in view the additional 10-foot capacity and 33 to 54 per cent shortage during early kharif.

As of Monday, water level from Mangla has been raised to 1,104.5 feet from 1,092.95 feet on April 1, 2002, at an average of around 10,000 cusec per day. On Monday, inflow at Mangla stood at 38,200 cusec against an outflow of 20,000 cusec and 18,200 cusec was stored as water flow has improved in Jhelum river in the wake of rains in Kashmir last weekend.

Inflow at Tarbela on Monday was recorded at 25,000 cusec against outflow of 23,800 cusec and water level was maintained at 1,369.55 feet due to the fear of movement of silt delta towards the channel. Minor variations in water level have been allowed in Tarbela as it was recorded at 1369.33 feet on April 1, 2002.

River flow in Kabul river has also increased slightly and was recorded at 15,800 cusec against 13,700 cusec on Sunday.

The Irsa technical committee has projected water shortage between 33 per cent to 54 per cent during early kharif and on that basis filling of Mangla Dam is on since April 1 after meeting “reasonable (water) requirement” of Sindh. The filling of Mangla Dam and releases to Sindh is being done on the basis of “existing actual average annual uses” of 1977-1982, commonly known as historic uses.