October 09, 2008	Thursday	Shawwal 9, 1429

HARIPUR, Oct 8: The Tarbela reservoir was left with little quantity of water which could badly affect the coming Kharif crop, sources at Tarbela Dam told Dawn here on Wednesday.

They said that quantity of water in the reservoir could cater to Irsa’s need of irrigation for next thirty days only. Sources said that water storage of reservoir was decreasing by about half feet daily due to shrinking inflow of water in river Indus. Water in the reservoir is only 100 feet short of its dead level, which is 1,369 feet.

Sources said that although Irsa had, owing to prevailing critical situation, reduced its water indent from 65,000 cusecs to 60,000 cusecs from Wednesday but as the Kharif or wheat sowing season was about to start in the country during the next couple of weeks, the water demand for irrigation would definitely shoot up ranging between 70,000 cusecs to 76,000 cusecs per day.

They said that inflow of water on Wednesday was 49,000 cusecs against the discharge of 60,000 cusecs on the demand of Irsa. The water level of the reservoir was recorded as 1472.07 feet and electricity generation stood at 2,652 megawatts. While last year this day the inflow of water in the reservoir was 40,000 and outflow on Irsa’s demand was 55,000 cusecs.

Official source said that Tarbela’s powerhouse had the capacity to generate about 3,000 megawatts electricity from the available quantity of water but for saving it for Kharif crop, the reduction in the quantity of discharge of water was imperative.