ISLAMABAD: The Indus River System Authority (Irsa) decided on Wednesday not to finalise estimates for water availability for the coming Rabi crop as recent rain appeared to have brought down shortage to 13-18 per cent from more than 20pc as was feared earlier.

Sources told Dawn that a meeting of the technical committee of the water regulator decided to leave the matter to its advisory committee which would meet on Sept 29 to finalise data on water availability, after the end of the current spell of rain.

The development came in the wake of improving flows in major rivers in the Chenab zone as the Chenab saw a medium flood of 180,000 cusecs on Tuesday and Jhelum a flow of 125,000 cusecs.

Take a look: Heavy rain lashes Punjab and AJK

“It is difficult at this stage to finalise the availability and shortage estimates as river flows are not settling down,” an official said.

The improved flows have enabled Irsa to reduce discharges from Tarbela dam from 100,000 to 90,000 cusecs. In fact, the National Transmission and Dispatch Company has been put on notice that Tarbela discharges will be further reduced to 50,000 cusecs by Sept 25. Water discharges from Mangla dam have also been reduced to 15,000 cusecs from 45,000 cusecs because of improved water availability in the system.

It was, therefore, tentatively estimated that shortages in Rabi would be significantly lower than previous estimates of over 20pc.

The shortage in the next season would range between 13pc and 18pc but the data would be finalised by the advisory committee, said the official.

The committee would also finalise the amount of water to be provided to each province and the distribution mechanism for the Rabi season, starting on Oct 1. The season normally concludes by the end of April.

The Tarbela reservoir had 4.2 million acres feet (MAF) of water and the Mangla reservoir about 6.22MAF on Wednesday.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2015

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