15 January 2005	Saturday	04 Zilhaj 1425

ISLAMABAD, Jan 14: The Indus River System Authority (Irsa) has asked Wapda to stop forthwith the release of water from Tarbela dam for power generation to avoid water shortage for agricultural requirements, it is learnt.

Informed sources told Dawn on Friday that Irsa had written two letters to Wapda and the Ministry of Water and Power protesting over the violation of water release schedule.

The Irsa sources said that the overall water shortage during the current rabi season has been estimated to have come down to about 33 per cent from original estimates of 47 per cent shortage in view of the improvement in river flows. As such, a total storage of water at present has now increased to about 1.7 million acres of feet (MAF) from last week's 1.5 MAF storage.

These sources said the Sindh government had also written two protest letters to the Irsa over excessive water releases for power generation and has demanded that this water should not be accounted for in its water share for rabi season.

The Irsa sources said that it was agreed to by all stakeholders that in case of filling of Chashma barrage to its full capacity, water would not be released for power generation from Tarbela dam and hence it was a violation of the agreement on the part of Wapda to continue releasing water for power generation.

The sources said the Wapda was releasing 5000 cusecs of water per day to Chashma-Jhelum Link Canal against a zero indent from Punjab. Similarly, about 16,000 cusecs of water was being released from Chashma against an indent of 12,000 cusecs. Hence, about 9,000 cusecs of water was being wasted every day and a total of 100,000 cusecs has been wasted in the last one week.