MULTAN, Aug 10: The Punjab Irrigation Department has painted a depressing picture of water availability for the standing cotton crop in the days to come. The situation was reviewed at the fortnightly meeting of the Cotton Crop Working Group held here on Tuesday.

Agriculture secretary Arif Nadeem chaired the meeting, which was attended by the officials of various wings of the agriculture and irrigation departments and the representatives of farming community, ginners and pesticides firms.

Sources present at the meeting told Dawn that the irrigation department's chief engineer informed the CCWG that the cotton growers might face acute shortage of irrigation water from the middle of the current month due to shortage in reservoirs.

He said the overall rainfall in the ongoing monsoon season could not be termed sufficient to ensure unabated supply of the irrigation water. The rains this year were sporadic and, thus, had failed to help increase water level in the dams, he added.

He said the irrigation department was left with no other choice except to resort to the warabandi (turn system) of the canals. It may be added here that the standing cotton crop in the fields of the Punjab still needs at least four more irrigations up to Sept 15 to gain full maturity to sustain cotton bolls.

Representatives of the pesticide business apprised the CCWG of the stocks of pesticides meant to combat economically pernicious cotton pests and claimed that there would be no shortage of the pesticides this year contrary to the last year's when popular pesticides were difficult to be found in the open market.

However, the growers' representatives pointed out that the pesticides had this year again started disappearing from the open market as the crucial period of crop maturity was approaching in the backdrop of the possibility of pest infestation due to so far unpredictable weather conditions.

The agriculture experts, nonetheless, expressed satisfaction over the current crop situation. Senior officials present at the meeting said the provincial government was very much in contact with the federal government over the enforcement of cotton support price policy to ensure the growers minimum price of Rs925 per 40 kg of phutti (seed cotton).