March 26, 2003	Wednesday	Muharram 22, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, March 25: The Rs450 million telemetry system, installed on the demand of provincial governments to monitor water discharge at dams and barrages, is in doldrums due to non-availability of funds for hiring technical staff to run the system.

Official sources told Dawn on Tuesday that the Water and Power Development Authority had completed the installation of telemetry devices at 23 locations from where the irrigation water was released.

Wapda is currently testing the devices and would hand over the system to the Indus River System Authority on March 31. Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali is expected to inaugurate the project which has been conceived with a view to removing inter-provincial mistrust over distribution of river Indu water and allegations of water theft.

These telemetry gauges are linked directly to a centrally computerised monitoring room set up at the Irsa office in Islamabad.

Sources in Irsa said that Wapda had completed the installation of 23 devices at a cost of Rs290 million. The remaining portion of Rs150 million required for the recruitment of technical staff to run the project has not been released by the ministry of finance.

The sources said Irsa had written to the finance ministry twice during the last two months to release the amount so that the telemetry system could be put to operation. However, the amount has not been released so far.

The telemetry system would record data of water releases from dams, barrages and other points in the central monitoring room.

The sources said even if funds were released now it would take two to three months to recruit technical staff to run the system despite the fact that the Kharif season was about to commence when provinces would be needing water for irrigation purposes.

During the last Kharif season, the federal government had to deploy rangers to monitor water channels between Sindh and Balochistan as some tribal leaders had created illegal channels to divert flow of water.