ISLAMABAD: Having lost over 20 million acre-feet (MAF) water into the sea during the recent floods, the country is estimated to face water shortage of about 5MAF in the Rabi season starting on Oct 1.

According to informed sources, it is despite the fact that current storage in dams stands at around 14.039MAF, slightly lower than the maximum conservation capacity of 14.116MAF. Last year, the storage at this stage stood at 12.197MAF.

The sources said the country’s irrigation requirement for Rabi had been estimated at 36MAF and maximum water availability at around 31MAF, leaving a shortfall of about 5MAF. This is mainly because of limited storage capacity as the country could not conserve surplus water produced by the floods.

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“Due to storage constraints, we could not store surplus water as 20MAF went down the Kotri Barrage in the flood season against the annual requirement of 8-10MAF that flows downstream Kotri for environmental reasons,” a government official told Dawn.

As floodwater receded recently, the Punjab government requested the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) to allow water flows into the Chashma-Jhelum Link Canal for environmental requirements.

The Sindh government opposed the request at a meeting of the water regulator. It said Irsa had never allocated water for downstream Kotri for environmental needs since 1991 despite guarantees given in the 1991 Water Apportionment Accord about discharge of at least 8MAF downstream Kotri, a need reconfirmed by international experts in 2005.

However, Irsa decided through a majority vote to divert 7,000 cusecs of water from the Indus zone to the Jhelum zone through CJ-Link Canal in addition to 3,000 cusecs already allowed for Greater Thal Canal (GTC).

On Wednesday, Irsa decided to reverse its decision to shift water quantities from the Indus zone to the Jhelum zone, except for diversion of 3,000 cusecs for the GTC, and issued directives to stop flow of 7,000 cusecs for CJ-Link Canal.

In a letter to the Punjab irrigation authorities, Irsa directed it to close CJ-Link Canal from Thursday morning. The provinces were told that Irsa was also considering stopping flows allowed for Taunsa-Punjnad Link Canal from Tarbela Dam and instead shift the quantities for discharge from Mangla Dam. The Punjab irrigation department was advised to make alternative arrangements accordingly.

On Wednesday, water storage at Tarbela Dam was recorded at 6.434MAF, at its maximum conservation level, against the last year’s storage of 5.715MAF. Storage at Mangla Dam stood at 7.378MAF against 7.406MAF of maximum storage capacity and last year’s storage of 6.3MAF.

Published in Dawn, September 3rd, 2015

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