LAHORE, March 17: The country may face an overall five per cent water shortage during the coming Kharif season with early period — from April 1 to June 10 — witnessing 10 per cent scarcity.

According to the early projections prepared by Indus River System Authority, the catchment areas of all rivers have received sufficient quantity of snow that will help fill both dams this year. The authority has convened a meeting of its technical committee on 25th to firm up these early projections.

Last year, the authority had projected shortages of 43.5 per cent for the early and 11 per cent for the late Kharif season, and an overall 22 per cent shortage. But actual shortages the country suffered went down 31 per cent during the early period and further down, taking the overall shortage to 7.3 per cent for the Punjab and four per cent for Sindh.

According to Irsa sources, the Tarbela dam may hit the dead level by Thursday. The dam level on Monday was 1371.18 feet, 2.18 feet above the dead level of 1,369 feet. By Friday, the dam will be on run-of-the-river supplies. But important irrigation supply from the Indus zone has already been met in Sindh and the Punjab is supplementing it’s and Sindh’s supplies from the Mangla dam.

On Monday, the Mangla dam stood at 1101.70 feet, 61.70 feet above the dead level of 1,040 feet. By the 20th of the month when the Punjab will also consume its allotted share, the dam is expected to be at 1,080 feet, 40 feet above the dead level and contain 0.12 million acres feet water. This additional water would help supplement early Kharif supplies in the country.

Historically, the Punjab tries to fill the Mangla lake up to 80 per cent by June 20, and waits for monsoon rains to fill the rest. The water planner expected a fall in Indus zone — Indus and Kabul rivers’ supplies — but a rise in Mangla zone during the coming Kharif.

“These projections are based on probable river flows and may change slightly, depending on the climatic behaviour during the season,” says a water planner from the authority.

In fact, the country’s meteorological office is not equipped with necessary gadgets to measure extent and depth of the snow over the catchments hills and exact amount of water to be generated from there. For this reason, all these projections are based on historical behaviour of the rivers and may change slightly, he said.