ISLAMABAD, May 18: The Indus River System Authority (Irsa) has been informed that the telemetry system had serious design faults and it continued to be non-functional at a number of stations. The Irsa, which met here on Wednesday, also discussed the revised filling criteria for Mangla dam owing to construction work requirements.

Reliable sources told Dawn that the meeting was presented an interim report of the consultants regarding the electronic side of the telemetry system which revealed design faults.

The report said the environmental aspects and power requirements of the system were not taken care of at the time of designing it. To a question whether the system needed to be redesigned, Irsa said that such a decision could only be taken when the consultants presented their final report after a month.

The power-related problem of the telemetry system at Tarbela dam has been removed and the site was under observation. The censors at Mangla dam have been removed owing to construction work.

A technical team has been dispatched to Khanki to remove the technical problems. Due to lack of power supply, the system at Sulemanki headworks was not functioning. Wapda has been directed to restore the power supply.

Similarly, the censors at Sukkur were out of order. New equipment has been imported from Singapore which would be installed within a day or two. The meeting was informed that Wapda needed to keep the water level in Mangla dam at 1,125 feet by May 31 instead of its earlier plan of 1,135 feet. In a situation like this, Mangla dam’s water level would have to be kept at 1,180 feet during the month of June and discharges would have to be kept between 15,000 and 20,000 cusecs per day.

It was decided to refer the Wapda plan to the Punjab irrigation department to see whether it would be possible to meet its water requirement in the changed situation. The Punjab was also asked to submit its tentative water requirement plan for the month of June regarding the Jhelum and Chenab.

Irsa sources said the changed situation would not disturb Punjab’s water requirement given the surplus availability of water in the overall system as more than 25,000 cusecs were currently being released to the canals in addition to the normal requirement. Besides, the water level at Tarbela dam was also 55 feet higher than the required level.

The meeting was informed that Sindh was being provided one million cusecs of water from the Chashma barrage, out of which 10,000 cusecs were required for replacing Manchar lake water. The meeting was also informed that Punjab had started drawing 4,000 cusecs per day from the Chashma-Jhelum canal.