HYDERABAD, Dec 27: The Manchhar Lake Water Control Committee on Wednesday recommended to the federal and provincial governments and the Indus River System Authority (IRSA) to release at least 50,000 cusec water downstream Sukkur Barrage.

This would enable the lake’s management to release about 1,000 cusec water into the river, which would reduce pressure on its embankments and avoid danger the lake’s rising level, which overswelled in wake of heavy winter rains, posed to the surrounding villages.

The committee formed in the wake of May 2004 tragic incident in which 42 people in Hyderabad had died after drinking water mixed with highly toxic water from the lake had since than decided that the ratio between discharge of lake’s saline water and river’s water would be maintained at 1:50 (1000 cusec lake water to 50,000 river water).

The body’s meeting was chaired by Hyderabad District Nazim Kanwar Naveed Jamil at District Nazim Secretariat.

The committee rejected the proposal submitted by chief engineer irrigation of Larkana Atta Mohammad Soomro which warned that water level in the lake had risen to dangerous level of 113.95 feet and it needed urgent depleting by at least two feet.

The engineer proposed that all the civic managements depending on Indus River water downstream Sehwan should store water according to their needs and then allow his management to open all the gates of Aral Wah to release lake’s water into the river at full capacity at least for a week during the closure period of Kotri Barrage. He added that people should be advised not to take water directly from the river.

All the committee members except irrigation department called the proposal impracticable saying that many towns including Jamshoro, Matiari, Tando Muhammad Khan, Badin and Thatta districts, which were taking water directly from Indus River had no reservoirs to store water.

He said that Manchhar Lake problem could be solved either by increasing water release downstream Sukkur Barrage or by allowing the management concerned to discharge lake water into the river within the permissible limits.