July 24, 2002	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 13,1423

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QUETTA, July 23: Latest water resources management techniques should be used for overcoming water shortage and to control the depleting underground water level in the province, Balochistan Irrigation and Power Minister Sardar Mehdi Hassan Musa said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a seminar arranged by the provincial planing and development department and United Nations Children’s Fund on “Water resources management in Balochistan”, he said conventional methods of water resources management had failed to control water wastage.

He said that during the last two decades agriculture sector had developed and growers installed large number of tubewells when Balochistan was contacted with the national power grid system.

With the uncontrolled installation of tubewells in Balochistan, the water level started depleting but the authorities did not take notice of the situation, he said.

He said the government had taken emergency steps to resolve the water shortage problem in the provincial capital.

He said there were over 2,000 watering points in the valley and the water budget of the basin showed that about 35 cubic feet per second had been overdrawn from the storage.

He underlined the need for efforts for storage of flood water and said that in Balochistan, out of 10 million acre feet of flood water of hill torrents, hardly 3MAF were harnessed and 7MAF went into the sea.

He said the government had started construction of delay action and check dams. He said that government was also working on a plan for searching new sources of water.

He said that drought also had created problems as Quetta and other areas of the province had not received rain for the last five years.

Development Additional Chief Secretary Ahmed Bakshsh Lehri underlined the need for creating awareness about saving water. He said the provincial government had allocated Rs50 billion for water schemes to be implemented in five years.