ISLAMABAD: For the first time in about two decades, there will be no water shortage during Kharif season starting from this month, raising hopes of a bumper agricultural output, according to official estimates.

Thanks to nature, carryover water reserves during the season would also be the highest in about 10 years mainly because of recent “very good timely rainfall”, the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) observed on Monday.

A meeting of Irsa’s advisory committee, presided over by the regulator’s chairman Nasim Khan Bazai and attended by the members and experts of weather, irrigation and power, reached the consensus that “there will be no water shortage in coming Kharif”, Irsa spokesman Khalid Idrees Rana told journalists.

He said the meeting approved water availability estimates of 107.84 million acre feet (MAF) for the Kharif season as worked out by Irsa’s technical committee on March 25.

He said the regulator decided to finalise a plan for water distribution among the provinces under para-2 of the 1991 Water Apportionment Accord and provide water to the provinces on the basis of their demand.

This is for the first time in many years that provincial shares would be fixed on the basis of the accord. Because of repeated water shortages, Irsa had over the years adopted an ad-hoc three-tier distribution plan that worked out provincial shares in three stages — early, middle and late watering — through a formula based on a combination of historic uses and shortage sharing.

Mr Rana said Irsa decided to carry forward about 10.38MAF storage in two dams into the next Rabi season starting in October because of sufficient water availability in Kharif.

The conveyance water losses, commonly known as system losses, for the Kharif season were estimated at 19.66 per cent.

Irsa also decided to allow release of 9.98MAF water downstream Kotri as required under the accord for environmental reasons, leaving behind a stock of about 68MAF water to be distributed among the provinces.

As such, Punjab’s Kharif share was fixed at 33.94MAF, followed by Sindh at 30.49MAF. Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would get a share of 2.56 and 0.82MAF, respectively, Mr Rana said.

He said the situation of water availability was not only better than last year but the best over the past 10 years and it was for the first time since mid-1990s that there would be zero shortage in Kharif.

Another official said Irsa was going to declare five per cent shortage for Kharif but then consented with consensus to a suggestion from the Sindh government that there was no reason to do so since storage in reservoirs had risen to 2MAF from March 25’s 1.5 MAF when the technical committee had finalised estimates.

Irsa also decided to continue with the outflow of 12,000 cusec of water from Tarbela Dam and reduce discharges from Mangla Dam to 15,000 cusec from 20,000 cusec as the provinces said the wheat crop had reached maturity stage and they did not need water because of timely rains over the last two weeks. The arrangement will remain in place until April 5.

Informed sources said the federal government requested Irsa to enhance discharges from dams to enable it to increase power generation. But the regulator rejected the request with consensus and said its highest priority at this stage was to conserve water to ensure better availability later, which would be more beneficial for irrigation and power generation during peak summer.

The Irsa chairman told journalists that the advisory committee had taken all decisions with consensus. He said the recent rains had cast a timely impact on standing crops and would have equally good signs for early Kharif.

If some changes occurred in river flows in future, the regulator would make adjustments accordingly. He said the better water availability was a good omen for agriculture and energy sectors.

Kharif cropping season starts from April-June and lasts until October-December in different parts of the country. Rice, sugarcane, cotton, maize and mash are some of the key crops of the season.