LAHORE, Aug 6: The Indus River System Authority’s decision to cut water supplies at this stage could harm agriculture in the Punjab beyond redemption and reduce cotton production by at least 30 per cent to 40 per cent.

The Punjab Water Council on Tuesday claimed that cotton crop in the province was at flowering stage. Any water shortage at this stage could shed flowers and reduce yield by one-third. No doubt that the Irsa’s duty include dam filling but it has to protect crops also. Filling dam at this stage means harm to cotton crop in the Punjab, which was not acceptable at any stage, it said.

Water reduction is more harmful for the Punjab because there is 45 days cropping pattern difference between the two provinces, says a cotton farmer from the south Punjab. In the Punjab, cotton was at flowering stage but it has already matured in Sindh or nearing that stage. Temperatures have also dropped in Sindh and dew started raining there. That, in cropping term means, that cotton fruit could get moisture from the air at night and survive. But it was exactly opposite in the Punjab, temperatures in the cotton belt are still quite high and dry. Cotton crop cannot take that kind of stress at this stage, he added.

The importance of water at this stage could also be gauged from the fact that flowering stage lasts only 60 hours, claims another farmer. If the crop is not watered during these hours, shedding of flowers could drastically reduce final yield. The Irsa must not play with crop that has already been sown. It either should have filled the dam in July or wait till after mid-September.

The meteorological office has forecast normal rains which means that it still has two months of rains to fill Mangla dam. Why cut water now and destroy the crop, he wondered.

Farmers realize the drought conditions and ready to bear the brunt, claims a member of the Farmers Associates Pakistan. But what farmers are protesting against at this stage is the timing of the decision. The Irsa has decided on Monday to start storing 50,000 cusecs in Tarbela and 7,000 cusecs in Mangla dams irrespective of inflows. This hardly makes sense at a time when rivers’ flows have gone below 30-year inflows thus leaving dams and farmers at the mercy of nature. The Irsa decision has placed a time device under the cotton crop that could destroy the whole economy along with cotton, he claimed.

In irrigation terms, full supplies to cotton belt means running Sidhnai-Mailsi-Bahawal canal system to maximum, claims Malik Naeem of Bahawalnagar. Reducing water supply by 32 per cent at this stage would reduce one-thirds of water; that, in turn, means delaying watering for three weeks for every farmer. Cotton will not be able to tolerate that kind of water stress at flowering stage. Underground water in cotton belt areas was saline. It cannot be pumped out and applied to the crop. That leaves only option of canal water that the Irsa has squeezed now through its order, he laments.

It is not only cotton crop that will be harmed; but sugarcane and paddy may suffer equally, claims Hamid Malhi of the Punjab Water Council. Rice, in this season, thrives on cool fresh water. Now, fresh water is not available and the standing water gets hot and harms the crop. Same is true of sugarcane. The crop has just come out of earlier water stress, driving it back to the same situation could hurt it again. Dams are built to regulate water, which means providing water during the stress period and saving when available. If dams cannot save a crop from destruction, what they are for, he questions.