ISLAMABAD, Dec 8: Provinces have been asked to immediately submit their water requirements to the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) so that a water management plan for the remaining period of Rabi could be finalized by Dec 11.
This was conveyed to the federating units during an inter-provincial meeting held on Wednesday. A meeting of Irsa's technical committee will be held on Dec 11 to finalize the plan, which would be ratified by another inter-provincial meeting to be held on Dec 13 before being implemented.
Water releases to provinces which have utilized more than their specified share in the early part of Rabi, would be cut in the subsequent watering periods so that their overall seasonal shares could be averaged out in an equitable manner, sources said.
The meeting, presided over by Water and Power Minister Liaqat Ali Jatoi, was attended by Punjab's irrigation minister, officials of water and power ministry, provincial irrigation secretaries and senior officials of Irsa and the Met Office.
When contacted, Mr Jatoi said the Met Office did not inform the meeting of any prolonged drought-like situation in the country for 15 years and said they had no such mechanism to forecast for such a long period.
A senior Met Office official, however, explained that it had recently told the Planning Commission that the current cycle of low water availability could persist for 5-15 years which did not mean that there would be drought in the country for 15 years.
The Met Office informed the inter-provincial meeting that there would be normal rain and snowfall in the country during the months of January and February and there might be rains in March and April as well.
The minister asked the provinces to submit their plan of realistic demand and utilization of water immediately so that the federal government and Irsa could decide about the management and distribution of water among them by next week.
He stressed the need of evolving a rational methodology for carrying out a proper management of water resources and reducing watering to crops for one week with two weeks of no watering.
The minister asked the provinces to extend the telemetry system to all the canals to assess the quantum of water losses and thefts. The system, which was recently made fully operational at 23 locations in the country, was appreciated by representatives of all the provinces.
The meeting decided to expand the system to canals and asked the provinces to recommend a pilot project for the installation of Telemetry system on any one of their canals.
Irsa chairman told the meeting that withdrawals of water by the provinces during the months of October and November were 37 per cent less than the corresponding months of the previous year.
