26 September 2004	Sunday	10 Shaban 1425

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 25: A technical committee meeting of the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) on Saturday could not finalize provincial shares but it projected about 37 per cent overall shortage of water during the Rabi season.

The requirement for Rabi was about 36.5 MAF (million acre feet) water, but the availability had been estimated at around 22-24 MAF, Irsa secretary Sohail Ali Khan told reporters after the meeting.

He refused to disclose the options the technical committee had discussed for sharing of water among the provinces as well as estimates presented by Wapda and the provinces. He said deliberations would continue on Monday when final figures would be made public.

The meeting presided over by Punjab's Irsa member Shafqat Masud was attended by the representatives of Wapda and the four provinces.

A meeting of Irsa's advisory committee has been convened on Oct 2 to finalize the water distribution plan for Rabi on the basis of projections to be approved by the technical committee on Monday.

Sources said that Irsa had estimated over 5 MAF, or 37 per cent shortage of water, for the early Rabi period. It had projected about 23 MAF water for the whole season and as such overall shortage would also be about 37 per cent.

They said Punjab and Wapda had objected to the Irsa projections of water availability but Irsa sources said the authority would insist on its projections when the figures would be finalized on Monday.

The secretary said Irsa had conveyed to the provinces through a Sept 21 letter that releases from dams would be stopped on Sept 26 as afterwards they would get only run-of-the- river water for the remaining few days of Kharif ending on Sept 30. But Sindh, he explained, informed Irsa that its Kharif season would continue till Oct 20 because of the late cropping and hence it required additional water and only the run-of-the-river water would not meet its crop requirement.

He said Sindh had been asked to submit a formal request for the required quantity of water for releases from dams so that projections could be finalized on Monday.

He said the river flows had dropped drastically in the last three days and there was no forecast for a major rainfall till December.

He said the water availability at Tarbela on Saturday stood at 3.123 MAF. The water level at Mangla was 1150.85 feet, meaning about 2.373 MAF water availability.

He said total inflows amounted to 107,000 cusec against total outflows of 157,000 cusec which indicated that some depletion was still in the progress.

Meanwhile, the upstream and downstream discharges at Kalabagh were recorded at 93,544 and 87,044 cusec, respectively. At Taunsa it stood at 88,069 and 74,242 cusec, respectively. And at Sukkur barrage the figures were 58,349 and 20,514, respectively.

Similarly, upstream and downstream discharges at the Guddu Barrage were recorded at 81,895 and 63,865 cusec, respectively. There was no downstream discharge from Kotri against an upstream discharge of 20,090 cusec.