LAHORE, July 26: Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi says new dams are necessary to meet irrigation needs of the country.

Chairing a meeting on increasing farm productivity here on Monday , he said the country needed water reservoirs with 15 million acre feet (MAF) capacity within the next 20 years.

The situation demanded construction of at least three large dams which could store around 20 MAF water, he added. Work on these big reservoirs should be initiated simultaneously, he said.

The country has been facing a serious water shortage for the last four years mainly because of silting of main reservoirs, Tarbela and Mangla, which resulted in the loss of 25 per cent cut in their storage capacity.

The chief minister said this hardly hit the farming community as 30 per cent reduction in water availability affecting wheat, cotton and rice yield. This year, he said, Tarbela and Mangla were far below their planned filling levels and a danger of severe water scarcity was looming large on agriculture economy.

He regretted that the situation was being faced despite the fact that 21 MAF water, three times the storage capacity of Tarbela, flowed down into the sea during the last monsoon due to limited reservoir capacity.