LAHORE, April 23: Wapda is vigorously carrying out feasibility studies and engineering designs for various hydropower projects with accumulative generation capacity of more than 25,000 MW and most of these studies are at an advanced stage of their completion.

Chairman Shakil Durrani said this while briefing a delegation of the National Management Course here at the WAPDA House on Wednesday. The delegation was led by National Management College Principal Lt-Gen. Javed Hassan (retired).

The chairman, giving an overview of the country’s water and power scenario, said Wapda, after its bifurcation in October last year, was now more focused towards harnessing the water and hydropower resources.

Later, Wapda Member (Water) Muhammad Mushtaq Chaudhry and PepCO Managing Director Munawar Baseer Ahmed briefed the delegation on water and power sectors, respectively.

The delegation was told that per capita availability of water in Pakistan had reduced to an alarming 1,070 cubic metres in 2007 and the country would have to face an acute shortage in 2012 if the storage capacity was not enhanced by building new water reservoirs.

The delegation was also informed that Pakistan had been blessed with ample water resources but could develop only 13 per cent storage capacity of the annual flows of its rivers, and that too was fast depleting due to sedimentation of the reservoirs of Tarbela, Mangla and Chashma. It was briefed that the United States had developed 497 per cent storage capacity of the annual flow of River Colorado. Likewise, Egypt possesses 281 per cent storage capacity on River Nile and India 35 per cent on Sutlej-Bias Basin.

The delegation was told that the increasing population and depleting storage capacity of the water reservoirs in Pakistan called for constructing more than one mega dams without any further delay. Building just one mega water reservoir would just be a replacement of the lost capacity of the existing reservoirs.

It was further told that more than 20 million acres of virgin land could be irrigated provided additional water was made available by constructing new water reservoirs in Pakistan.

The delegation was also briefed about the projects being executed by Wapda in water and hydropower sectors.