THIS refers to the editorial ‘Water shortages’ (April 7). While building dams to store flood water is ideal, they take 8-10 years to get completed. The editorial has not given much weight to the idea of curtailing water losses in the current system, estimated to be between 20-35 per cent.

Water courses cause a cumulative loss of 12 million acre feet (MAF). Bigger canals, tributaries and minors make their own contributions. The Kalabagh dam, if it ever gets constructed, will have the capability to store six MAF. By curtailing water losses, we may have additional water equivalent of two, repeat two, Kalabagh dams, and that, too, without spending monstrous money and causing political heartburn!

How about replacing these thousands and thousands of water courses with PVC pipes which will not only bring losses down to zero, but would also deliver designed flow to tail-end farmers who are currently helpless? This can be done in less than a year. Turkey has already done it and India is currently doing it. Can we be the next?

S. Nayyar Iqbal Raza
Karachi

Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2021