27 January 2004	Tuesday	04 Zilhaj 1424

LAHORE, Jan 26: The Punjab government has rejected a Punjab Water Council claim that it (the govt) has been "tricked into accepting Kalabagh Dam as a carryover reservoir."

Elaborating the "correct position" as stated by the Punjab Irrigation department before the parliamentary committee, an official spokesman said that Pakistan received 70 per cent of river flows in the three months of monsoon, while in the remaining nine months, the river flows dropped drastically.

"For optimal harnessing and utilization of the available water resources, it is absolutely essential to tap and conserve the monsoon flows and use them for beneficial purposes during the remaining dry months."

The spokesman said this objective could only be achieved by constructing new reservoirs which would conserve surplus monsoon flows. Moreover, the spokesman added, Pakistan had witnessed wet as well as dry cycles. During the wet cycles, flows to the extent of 90 million acre feet (MAF) had gone below Kotri, while the country also experienced dry years when there had been little flow downstream Kotri.

"It is against this backdrop that Punjab highlighted the need for construction of dams for transferring water from summer season to winter and further from wet cycle to the dry cycle to derive full benefit from the available resources. It is in the context of this definition that Mr Jehangir Khan Tareen had stated that Punjab supports carryover dams", the spokesman concluded.