ISLAMABAD, March 26: The Water and Power Development Authority and the Indus River System Authority have reached an agreement to jointly monitor the functioning of all the 23 computerized water discharge points before the Rs320 million telemetry system is formally transferred to Irsa, it is learnt.
Sources said Irsa and the irrigation departments of the smaller provinces were not satisfied with the accuracy of some censors of the telemetry system, hence it had been decided to double-check the system.
Wapda claims that the system is now error-free as a result of over three months of repair and maintenance.
The agreement to double-check the system through joint inspection was reached at a meeting in Lahore on Friday, an official said.
The two sides have agreed to depute field officials of Wapda and provincial irrigation departments to jointly check the sites from March 30 to April 10 and compare the findings with the manual reading of daily water situation.
This will be followed by another joint inspection by senior officers of Irsa and the Water and Power Development Authority through field visit, after which a report will be submitted to the ministry of water and power and the prime minister’s secretariat.
If the system is found accurate, its ownership will be transferred to Irsa.
The telemetry system developed faults soon after its inauguration in September 2004 and Irsa had refused to operate it unless those were removed.
The system was installed on the instructions of President Pervez Musharraf as a step to build confidence among the federating units for construction of dams and addressing allegations of water theft.
Computerized censors were installed at 23 major water storage and discharge points for real-time recording of water situation.
The recordings were supposed to be available to the irrigation departments of all the provinces, a centralized monitoring point at Irsa and on a website for the general public.
However, most of the locations kept reporting wrong figures because of technical faults and the Indus River System Authority had to rely on manual recording of water situation.
