LAHORE: The accumulative water storage capacity in major reservoirs continues to decrease fast due to sediments, according to a senior official of the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda).

“The accumulative storage capacity of reservoirs including Mangla and Tarbela has decreased by 25 per cent because of the natural phenomenon of sedimentation,” Wapda Adviser on Daimer Basha Dam Project Dr Izharul Haq told a delegation of the National Security and War Course (National Security College) in a briefing after it visited the Wapda House here on Monday.

The delegation headed by Rear Admiral Zain Zulfiqar was briefed about the water and power sectors of the country.

The delegation was told that 29 MAF (million acre feet) water flowed downstream of Kotri Barrage every year on the average from 1976 to 2017.

This necessitates increase in water storage capacity of Pakistan by constructing new dams.

“Pakistan has an identified potential of 60,000MW hydel generation, which needs to be harnessed to its maximum for injecting low cost hydel electricity in the national grid to meet the requirement of electricity and stabilise [power] tariff in the country.

In another briefing, Pakistan Electric Power Company General Manager (Revenue and Commercial Operation) Engineer Muhammad Saleem briefed the delegation about power sector’s restructuring and reforms, challenges, opportunities and future plans.

The team was also informed about the initiatives on expansion plan, system improvement, meter reading through mobile phones, automatic metering infrastructure and net metering etc.

According to Hydrographic survey-2015, the Tarbela Dam alone lost over 35pc of storage capacity since its inception due to silting.

The survey reportedly reveals that the gross and live storage capacities of Tarbela reservoir since its impounding have reduced from 11.616 MAF to 7.271 MAF (37pc) and 9.692 MAF to 6.328 MAF (35pc), respectively.

Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2017