LAHORE, July 24: Most of the country’s rivers, except for Kabul and Indus, are flowing at lower-than-expected level. River Jhelum is almost half of its traditional flow at present. On Tuesday, its flow was 37,000 cusecs against the expected figure of 65,000 cusecs during this time of the year.

As such, the Mangla Dam faces the threat of ending up below its optimum level of 1,202 feet. On Tuesday, it was still seven feet below the optimum level, with a daily increase of two inches (in its level).

As per expectations of country’s water managers, the dam should get filled by August 10. But if the two inches daily increase in its level is something to go by, it will only go up by 2.5 feet, still falling short by 4.5 feet.

Similarly, Chenab which is normally in high or medium flood during this time of the year is flowing at 65,000 cusecs - some 25,000 cusecs less than the low flood situation. On the corresponding day last year, it had a flow of 91,000 cusecs.

According to a data provided by India, there are no releases in Ravi below Madhupur Headworks or in Sutlej below Ferozepur Headworks. So, all rivers in Punjab are flowing much lower anticipation of the water planners, official sources say.

Another pressure on Mangla Dam is extra releases for power generation. “The province only needs 15,000 cusecs for irrigation right now but is forced to release double that quantity because of the power crisis,” an official said.

Tarbella Dam, which stands at 1,524 feet against optimum level of 1,550 feet, is still 26 feet below the highest level. It is being raised by one foot a day due to dam security concerns, and would take another 26 days to touch the optimum level. The Indus has inflows as per expectations which may help fill the dam if the river sustains the trend for the next month or so.

Flow of River Kabul has increased if last year’s flow is the benchmark; it had on Tuesday 57,000 cusecs of water against 35,000 cusecs last year on the corresponding day. “But, unfortunately, all this flow is going downstream Kotri since there is no way to store it,” the sources said.

During the last one month, around eight million acre feet water had gone to sea against five million acres feet as recommended by the study carried out by the foreign experts. The total anticipated water that would be wasted to the sea was around 22maf. On Tuesday, some 86,000 cusecs went to the sea, he said.