ISLAMABAD April 7: The government on Wednesday assured the National Assembly that irrigation water was being distributed among provinces strictly on the basis of the 1991 water accord and that the 1994 ministerial agreement on the matter had been abandoned.
This assurance was given by Federal Minister for Water and Power Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao while making a policy statement on a calling attention notice sought to be moved by Pir Aftab Hussain Shah Jilani, Syed Qurban Ali Shah, Nawab Muhammad Yusuf Talpur, Nawab Abdul Ghani Talpur and Dr Fehmida Mirza of PPP Parliamentarians.
The movers, through the calling attention notice, invited the attention of the government towards lesser than required release of irrigation water for the Kharif season by Irsa, and pointed out that any distribution of water under the agreement between irrigation secretaries of Sindh and Punjab provinces would be in violation of 1991 water accord, causing grave concern among the farming community.
Mr Sherpao told the House that an average of 1 to 8 per cent shortage of water was anticipated by the technical committee on water during the Kharif season and the early sowing season was the worst hit.
He said that the technical committee had met on March 30 last and prepared its recommendations which will be submitted to Irsa meeting on April 13 after which the water would be released through indents on daily basis.
He admitted that the water flow was unusually low in current season due to late start of snow melting, forcing the water outflow at par with the water inflows from Tarbela and Mangla reservoirs both of which had already touched the dead level.
He said the inflow at Tarbela during last Kharif season was 37,000 cusecs which has been reduced to 25,400 cusecs in the current season. Similar was the case of Mangla reservoir from where both the inflow and the outflow were slightly over 23,000 cusecs.
Responding to the mover's fears that the water may still be distributed on the basis of 1994 water agreement the minister held out an assurance that it was not the case as the 1991 accord has replaced the 1994 one.
He told the members that the shortage of irrigation water had peaked as the outflow according to the technical committee's evaluation at present was only 18,500 cusecs (for Sindh province yesterday) as against the demand of 45,000 cusecs daily.
Nawab Abdul Ghani Talpur alleged that due to massive corruption in the Sindh irrigation department the water given to Sindh province was not utilized judiciously.
Mr Sherpao attributed the mismanagement if any on the provincial irrigation department. Another mover, Ms Fehmida Mirza, said her constituency, Badin district, was deprived of drinking water which according to her was a pity.
The minister said right now the situation was abnormal but as temperatures will rise and snow would start melting the water flows from various reservoirs would become better.
Mr Talpur contradicted the minister's statement about the figures of outflow of water in Sindh and said according to his information only 4000 cusecs of water was made available from Nara canal as against the capacity of 14,500 cusecs, 3000 cusecs from Rohri canal as against its capacity of 12,500 cusecs of water.
Qurban Ali Shah did not agree with figures of water flow for Sindh province as he said the acute shortage of water in his province was misinterpreted. He expressed the fear that the water distribution between Punjab and Sindh provinces was still going on according to 1994 ministerial agreement.
