ISLAMABAD: As the provinces start sowing Rabi crops, the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) is anticipating increase in water shortage to around 20 per cent, much higher than estimated a fortnight ago.

Informed sources told Dawn on Tuesday that Irsa is considering requesting the provinces to prepare contingency plans in view of higher water shortage to cater for crop watering requirements.

On Sept 30, an advisory committee meeting of the water regulator had worked out water shortage at 14pc for the Rabi season based on river flows, storage in dams and rainfall probabilities.

Also read: 5MAF water shortage feared for Rabi crops

The sources, however, said the regulator had to change its water estimates within a fortnight because river flows in the Indus and Kabul were not improving as anticipated and hence an adjustment in water probabilities would need to be made at the earliest to avoid loss to the crops at a later stage. The sources said the flows in the Jhelum region were moving almost in the same region as predicted earlier.

Irsa’s advisory committee had approved water distribution plan for all the four provinces on the basis of 14pc water shortage as it put total water availability in the irrigation system at 31.70 MAF in Rabi. The water distribution plan would, therefore, need to be changed in consultation with the provinces to make up for the lower water availability, an official said.

Based on 14pc anticipated shortage, Punjab was currently drawing 85,000 cusec water for its irrigation requirements while Sindh was getting 55,000 cusec at present. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan were drawing 2,600 cusec and 3,900 cusec respectively.

The water level at Tarbela dam was recorded at 1492 feet on Wednesday against its maximum level of 1550 feet, having total water resource of 3.432 million acre feet (MAF).

On the other hand, water level at Mangla dam stood at 1,218 feet against its maximum conservation level of 1,242 feet. Total water storage at Mangla was estimated at 5.637 MAF. The storage at Mangla has to be gradually brought down for technical reasons to allow Wapda authorities to complete major repair works caused by recent cracks in its structures.

Under the previous estimates, Punjab was allocated a total share of 17.08 MAF in Rabi while the share of Sindh was put at 12.90 MAF. KP was allocated 700,000 acre feet and Balochistan 1.02 MAF.

Earlier, the technical committee of Irsa had projected 30pc water shortage probabilities in river Indus at Tarbela, 35pc in Kabul at Nowshera, 30pc in river Jhelum at Mangla and 25pc in river Chenab at Marala.

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2015

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