MULTAN, Aug 28: A meeting of the Cotton Crop Management Group held here on Saturday called for judicious use of irrigation water in view of insufficient rainfall this year.

Provincial agriculture minister Muhammad Arshad Khan Lodhi presided over the meeting, also attended by senior officials of agriculture and irrigation departments and representatives of cotton market stakeholders from the private sector.

The irrigation department chief engineers from Faisalabad, Multan, Bahawalpur and Dera Ghazi Khan apprised the meeting of availability of canal water in their areas. They said that although water level in the rivers had improved during the last two weeks the situation could not be termed satisfactory because Mangla and Tarbela Dams had yet to be filled to capacity. They said water level was 35 and 60 feet less than the optimum at Mangla and Tarbela Dams, respectively.

They said the agriculture and irrigation departments had envisaged a joint strategy to cope with water shortage in the final stage of the standing cotton crop so as to save water for the Rabi season and timely wheat-sowing.

The minister directed the officials to ensure availability of quality pesticides at affordable prices.

The minister also assured the farming community that the government would not let phutti prices fall below the minimum official procurement price of Rs925 per 40kg.