October 23, 2007	Tuesday	Shawwal 10, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Oct 22: The Indus River System Authority (Irsa) on Monday forecast 22 per cent water shortage for the current Rabi season and decided, despite Sindh’s opposition, to distribute provincial water shares on the basis of historic use.

The advisory committee anticipated that water availability for Rabi 2007-08 would be 28.64 million acre feet (MAF) and a shortfall of 22 per cent, Irsa chairman Rafiq Ahmed Dahar said in a statement after a meeting of Irsa’s advisory committee.

Mr Dahar declined to comment on the likely impact of the shortage on crop output. The meeting discussed in detail the problem of non-functioning of Rs320 million telemetry system installed on president’s instructions and decided that Irsa would not accept the existing situation, he said.

Mr Dahar, who took over as chairman of the advisory committee on October 17, told reporters that the total availability this season was lower than last year’s 31.184 MAF when the country faced 14 per cent shortage but was better than in most of the years since 1992. Under the 1991 water accord, the availability should be 37 MAF.

He said that Irsa and the provinces had decided to distribute the shortage under a three-tier plan or para 14 (b) of the 1991 water accord, which means that the sharing of the shortage would change in terms of percentage of the increase or decrease in water availability.

Out of the total availability of 28.64 MAF, Mr Dahar said, Punjab would get 15.31 MAF and Sindh 11.61 MAF. Balochistan and the NWFP would get 1.02 MAF and 0.70 MAF, respectively.

Losses in the Indus system have been assumed at 10 per cent for the current Rabi.

Sindh irrigation secretary Shuja Ahmed Junejo, who represented his province as member of Irsa, insisted in the presence of Irsa chairman that Sindh opposed the distribution of provincial shares under para 14 (b) of the accord and demanded that shortages should be shared under para-2 of the accord.

Mr Junejo said Sindh’s principled stand was that distribution in case of shortage should be under para-2, otherwise its total loss in the Rabi season would be less than 0.4 MAF.

He said he also opposed advisory committee’s decision to exempt Balochistan and the NWFP from the sharing of shortages and demanded that shortages should be shared by all the provinces according to their shares fixed in the accord.

Mr Dahar said that the two smaller provinces had traditionally been exempted from shortages because water might not flow in their canals in case of reduction in their share.

In the meantime, the provinces were provided water with 20pc of reduced share. The Irsa chairman said a total of 14 MAF of water went downstream Kotri during the recently concluded Kharif season, against an overall requirement of about eight MAF as determined by independent experts.