LAHORE, April 30: The Punjab Irrigation Department on Friday decided that it would start opening non-perennial canals from Saturday. According to an official of the department, these canals will run at half their capacity in view of water shortage in the Kharif season.

The quantity of water will be progressively increased depending on availability of water during the next few weeks. He said that opening of non-perennial canals had been delayed this year due to low water flow. Last year, these canals were opened on April 15.

Meanwhile, inflow of main rivers has increased significantly over the last few days due to heavy rains in upper parts of the country. Due to increased water availability, the Indus River System Authority has started storing water both in Tarbela and Mangla Dams.

On Friday, the inflow of Indus at Tarbela was 61,800 cusecs as compared to a paltry 35,800 cusecs on April 27. The outflow of Indus increased to 55,300 cusecs on Thursday, with the rest of the water being stored.

The level of Tarbela Dam was 1,368.46 feet, against the dead level of 1,365 feet. Live storage was 0.053 million acre feet. The Mangla level was 1,069.15 feet against its dead level of 1,040 while the live storage was 0.197maf.