MORE then an year after the formal inaugural of the much publicized telemetry system, installed to monitor water discharge at dams and barrages, with a view to removing inter-provincial mistrust over distribution of river Indus water and allegations of water theft, the unending ownership controversy between Wapda and Irsa has rendered the system completely useless.

What seems today, as a matter of fact is that the telemetry system has became a bone of contention among the Indus River System Authority, Wapda and the provincial irrigation departments.

Amid reports that this system is being contracted out to a third party as both Wapda and Irsa are reluctant to run this system, the latest news is that Water and power development authority and Indus river system authority have reached an agreement to jointly monitor the functioning of computerized installations before the system is transferred to Irsa.

This system has been installed at 23 important distribution points of our irrigation system by WAPDA in pursuance of a federal cabinet decision in 2002 and was to be completed in May 2003 but got completed in December 2004. Since then it is lying unused.

The former federal minister for water and power, Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, had directed Wapda to continue to operate telemetry system till Irsa was equipped to take over the system. However, before this directive could be enforced, reshuffling in federal cabinet took placed which made Liaquat Ali Jatoi as federal minister for water and power. After this change at apex level and taking notice of delayed commissioning of the system even by the President who supported telemetry system, it has not started working as yet.

The controversy started when Wapda declared the system fully dependable; however the provinces contested this claim of Wapda and did not start using the data due to their serious apprehensions regarding the calibration process. The provinces demanded that the system needs to be up to their entire technical requirements and satisfaction before the system could be declared dependable. They were of the view that in its present form, the system is unable to serve the purpose it was designed for.

According to them, the system is not working properly because it is not calibrated precisely and is commissioned in haste. They are of the view that the calibration process of Indus basin like system, which is subject to great seasonal fluctuations, must takes at least a year because the system has to be scrupulously checked in seasons of high flood, low water supply and drought simultaneously. The system can only be then called fully operational after getting time-tested results.

The telemetry system will replace the manual system at the barrages and off-taking canals along river Indus and other rivers in Indus basin over which the provinces had serious reservations with regard to reported water discharges.

The calibration process, which Wapda was supposed to complete by March 31, has not been completed as yet and the data which the system is transmitting is different from the manually collected figures. The new system has been installed at all the water points to take the reading, but it has to be fully calibrated and made credible. It will be considered reliable only when it starts matching the age-old manual reading system.

Irrigation is crucial to an agricultural country like Pakistan. The developed countries have been using the telemetry system for the distribution of water due to its credibility and transparency for years. Indus river basin is one of the largest interconnected irrigation systems of the world. For quite some time real time information, equitable water distribution, sharing shortages and flood forecasting has been the operational bottlenecks of this complicated system.

In order to address this issues automatic telemetry system has been adopted to help evolve a better water management system, which takes into account all the shortcomings of the present manual procedures and processes.

The design of this system is such that no human interference in data acquisition, communication or processing will be possible. This will ensure that data tempering is practically not possible. It will also be possible for each office to cross check the data received at the other end under certain authority levels as defined electronically.

The existing manual operation for managing the irrigation system of the country is conducted through indents over phone or fax. Decisions for water distribution are taken based on the information of water availability calculated manually at barrages and obtained over phone/fax by Irsa. Over the years, particularly in the last decade, this method is creating misunderstandings among the provinces.

Since the stakeholders get their share of water on the basis of this secondary information, the mistrust situation is inevitable. Further, the actual gate positions at each barrage/dam are not known and are not verifiable. Therefore, usually the provinces blame each other for stealing their water.

The objective of the telemetry system would be availability of online information of water availability and flow of water at all dams and barrages. The secondary objective of the system is to build confidence among the provinces and to measure the water level, flow of water, gate position on the barrages and canals and immediate transmission of data on water.

It is agreed between Wapda and Irsa to depute field officials of Wapda and provincial irrigation departments to jointly check the sites from March 30 to April 10 and compare the findings with the manual reading of daily water situation. This will be followed by another joint inspection by senior officers of IRSA and the Wapda through field visit, after which a report will be submitted to the ministry of water and power and the prime minister’s secretariat. If the system is found accurate, its ownership will be transferred to Irsa.

Irrespective of the fact that as to who owns and runs the telemetry system and as to when funds are released for its operational expenses, the most important question arises out of this discussion is that do we, not being at a technological edge, have capabilities to maintain and run such sophisticated system. Having such a system either from our own kitty or out of foreign aid is not an issue, but the real issue for us is to maintain and run it.