LAHORE, Aug 8: The Punjab government on Wednesday resented the Indus River System Authority’s decision of reducing water supplies to the province “at this point of time” terming it “detrimental” to cotton crop.
In a letter to the authority, copies of which were also sent to President’s Secretariat and the Ministry of Water and Power, the Punjab has demanded rescinding of the decision and listed harms that it could cause. The letter also enumerated flaws in Irsa’s untimely obsession with filling of the dams right now.
The cotton crop in the province, the letter said, was at the flowering stage. Shortage of water at this stage meant shedding of flowers, which, once effected, would be irretrievable even if the rains came later on. Whereas, any subsequent rains could help fill dams. Precisely for this reason, it does not stand to logic to damage a standing crop for saving a crop that has yet not been sown. Farmers have made huge investments in cotton sowing but Rabi season sowing is still few months away. So, the Irsa must consider saving current crop, the letter demanded.
The letter pointed out that river flows have already dropped to historic low. The Irsa’s preference to shut off its eye from the agricultural needs and shift focus on the dam filling passes one’s comprehension. The authority single-mindedly calculated how much of Tarbela lake was empty and what quantity of water was needed to fill it up by August 31.
After making these calculations, it decided to keep the required amount of water ignoring the crop requirements. This is a one-sided approach. Crop needs, especially sown one, are more important than filling dams now. It must make a choice between destroying a standing crop or saving a future one, the Punjab demanded.
The Punjab currently needed 110,000 cusecs of water to meet its requirements.
Another 22,000 cusecs could be added to meet 20 per cent transmission losses. That means that total requirement was around 132,000 cusecs.
Of this, the province got only 110,000 cusecs — 35,000 cusecs from the Indus arm, 10,000 from the Mangla lake and 65,000 from Chenab. The Chenab inflows saved the day to some extent, but any drop in its inflows could bring worst harm to the cotton requirements to the province, it claimed.
The total requirement of the country is around 260,000 cusecs; add 20 per cent losses and the total comes to around 332,000 cusecs. On Wednesday, the combined river flow in the country was only 307,600 cusecs, which is around 65,000 cusecs less. How can Irsa decide to place a further cut on it and save from an already short supply, asked an official of the Punjab Irrigation and Power Department. This is outrageous, to say the least, he lamented.
Meanwhile, a member of Wapda’s Water Wing, while talking to Dawn, claimed that filling the Tarbela lake might be a professional compulsion of Irsa but replenishing Mangla lake has become a political liability of Wapda.
The president was due to break ground for Mangla raising on 14th. Unfilled lake could become an embarrassment for him and Mangla and provide ammunition to detractors of the project.
For this reason, Wapda has been putting pressure on Irsa to help fill the lake before 14th. This is in spite of the fact that almost 45 days of monsoon rains are still left and may fill up the dam latter. But Wapda is in hurry to get it filled and save itself from facing any possible embarrassment, he added.
