Irsa to finalise Kharif water allocation as river inflows improve

E-Paper | May 11, 2026

Listen to article

ISLAMABAD: With an improvement in hydrological conditions, the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) has convened a meeting of its advisory committee on Monday to review the water situation and finalise anticipated availability for the remaining Kharif 2025 season.

Kharif season begins on April 1, and water availability criteria and distribution among provinces are usually settled for the entire season by the advisory committee in the last week of March.

But given peculiar scarce water conditions, it had allocated only drinking water shares to provinces for April — the first month of the season generally used for sowing crops. Provinces had delayed sowing because of the unprecedented water shortage, estimated at 43 per cent at the time.

Irsa’s advisory committee decided on March 26 to meet again in the first week of May to take stock of the latest situation and finalise “Anticipated Water Availability Criteria” and set provincial water shares for the season.

The shortage has since dropped to about 25-27pc to be finally approved by the committee on May 5. The water storage in reservoirs, particularly Mangla and Tarbela, has further improved to 1.762 million acre-feet (MAF), up from 1.3 MAF on April 20 and almost zero on April 1.

Irsa has invited irrigation and agriculture secretaries from the four provinces, Wapda’s members for water and power, the chief engineering adviser and the chairman of the Federal Flood Commission, along with all Irsa members, to attend the crucial meeting.

The authority has already increased provincial water shares, raising hopes about better cotton sowing that was earlier feared to dent Kharif crops amid a 43pc water shortage for the season predicted on March 26 by the Irsa’s advisory committee.

The committee earlier resisted provincial pressures on March 26, particularly from Sindh, for lower allocations and gave monthly allocations to provinces from the maximum shortage scenario.

As a result, the provinces were given minimum shares, mostly sufficient only for drinking instead of irrigation.

The provinces generally delayed sowing crops where possible.

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2025

Our readers are at the heart of everything we do.
Do you have a thought to share or a way we can improve? We’d love to hear it. Reach out to us at feedback@dawn.com.

Pakistan

Khaleeq Kiani is an Islamabad-based reporter for Dawn, specializing in political economy, governance, business, finance, macroeconomics and energy. He can be found on X at @khaleeqkiani.

Sindh complains to Irsa over ‘transferring’ water from Indus as Punjab link canal opened

Provincial shares increased as more water becomes available

Only drinking water available amid unprecedented shortage

Branded Content

Master Group of Industries: Driving Pakistan's future through carbon negative innovation

By embracing clean energy solutions, the group continues to contribute toward lowering dependence on conventional energy sources and encouraging a more sustainable industrial ecosystem.

Climate uncertainty reshapes life in Pakistan as tree planting efforts shift towards survival

“The real work begins after the applause fades, in the quiet, daily acts of care that no camera records.”

Indus Cloud Limited, Indus DC REIT and UBL form strategic partnership to accelerate Pakistan’s digital infrastructure and cloud adoption

This collaboration marks a significant step toward strengthening the country’s digital backbone and locally hosted cloud services for enterprises and public sector organisations.