HARIPUR, March 5: Owing to increasing demands of water discharge by the Indus River Authority System and decreasing water inflow, water level in the Tarbela Dam has dropped and it is about 9 feet above the dead level.

“The water table is shrinking by 1.5 to 2 feet daily,” said an official source privy to the data of daily inflow and outflow of water. Further increase, he added, in water discharge could plunge the reservoir to the dead level before snow started melting in its catchment areas, which usually began in May.

Data collected from official sources on Wednesday revealed that the total discharge from the dam was 37,000 cusecs against the inflow of 25,600 cusecs and the level was 1378.43 feet against the dead level of 1369 feet. Electricity generation from the reservoir was 1,542 megawatts against the designed capacity of 3,478MW. Last year, the sources said, power generation on this day was 2,263 megawatts.

They said unchecked sedimentation mainly caused by massive deforestation in the dam’s catchment areas had developed a huge delta in the reservoir.

They said the delta was 50 miles long, 1 to 2 miles wide and its depth was 200 feet, which had caused accumulation of about 2.8 MAF of silt in the reservoir.

This mass of sediment has reduced the storage capacity of the reservoir and poses a threat to the electricity generation process.