Wheat ready for cropping near River Chenab.
ISLAMABAD: The shortage of water has reached alarming proportions and during the ongoing Kharif season there could be a shortfall of up to 50 per cent.
Sources in the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) told Dawn that because of the current rain, the temperature in Northern Areas was not rising, stopping the melting of snow and causing reduction in river flows.
Reports of large amounts of water ‘going missing’ mysteriously was adding to the problem.
Inflows at Mangla dam dropped from 28,000 cusecs to 25,000 cusecs on Sunday. Flows in the Kabul River also reduced to 13,000 cusecs while inflows at Tarbela came down to 21,000 cusecs.
The sources said that Irsa was releasing 45,000 cusecs from Mangla dam. The met office has forecast that temperature in Northern Areas will not increase during the current month.
Irsa sources said the water storage in Mangla dam would be fully utilised by April 15 while Tarbela dam has already reached its dead level.
The sources said that about 12,000 cusecs of water had been reported missing between Besham to Tarbela each day while another 15,000 cusecs remained unaccounted for between Tarbela and Chashma Barrage, which means that more than 25,000 cusecs was being lost a day.
The sources said that Irsa had been asking Wapda to investigate the water loss and submit a report to Irsa, but nothing had been done so far. They said river flow at Besham was recorded at 32,000 cusecs on Sunday but only 21,000 cusecs reached Tarbela.
They said that about 300,000 cusecs had been lost since March 15 between Besham and Chashma which translates into a loss of 0.6 million acre feet. As a result, Tarbela dam has reached its dead level and from Monday only run of the river water would be released from Tarbela dam.
No comments:
Post a Comment