ISLAMABAD: Amid a serious water shortage and electricity shortfall exceeding 5,000MW, the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) rejected on Friday a request from Punjab for releasing water into the controversial Greater Thal Canal, but allowed additional discharges from Tarbela dam to improve power generation.
Irsa sources told Dawn that the Punjab government had sought a release of 2,000 cusecs of water to operationalise the first phase of the Greater Thal Canal (GTC) completed recently at an estimated cost of about Rs9 billion. Irsa rejected the request in view of the water shortage and said the canal was meant mainly for the flood season and its formal opening could be considered only when water situation improved.
The total cost of the GTC is estimated at Rs31 billion and it is to benefit Khushab, Bhakkar, Layyah and Jhang districts of Punjab. The first phase of the canal has been completed with a total cost of Rs9 billion.
The Sindh government has been opposed to the operationalisation of GTC, saying the canal was a flood canal and could not be used as a regular canal. It has also been opposed to treatment of Chashma-Jhelum canal as a perennial canal.
The sources said that Irsa had also allowed withdrawal of 5,000 cusecs of additional water from Tarbela dam, over and above irrigation requirements of the provincial government, to help Wapda increase its generation capacity. Wapda companies are facing an electricity shortfall of more than 5,000MW and the additional water discharges would help increase hydropower generation by about 500MW.
Under the decision, withdrawals from Tarbela dam had been increased to 20,000 cusecs instead of provincial irrigation requirements of about 15,000 cusecs. Officials said that additional releases from Tarbela dam would be stored in the Chashma barrage where sufficient storage capacity was currently available for later releases and adjustments against provincial shares.
Irsa also increased Sindh’s releases from 45,000 cusecs to 50,000 cusecs for crop requirements while Punjab’s indent was increased from 64,000 cusecs to 69,000 cusecs on Friday. To meet increased provincial requirements, Irsa also increased outflows from Mangla dam to 50,000 cusecs from 40,000 cusecs a day earlier while Sindh’s share through Panjnad had also been increased to 10,000 cusecs for the next 10 days from 8,000 cusecs earlier.
The sources said Irsa had also written a letter to Punjab and Sindh governments to be very cautious in their calculations and be considerate in seeking their irrigation shares in view of unstable water flows in rivers so that available water in dams could be utilised judiciously and carefully as required by shortages.
They said that temperatures in catchment areas had become unpredictable dropping again to 14 degree Celsius in Skardu after rising to 20 degrees a couple of days ago and, as a result, river flows had considerably dropped and were expected to remain so over the next two to three weeks.
The inflows in the river Indus at Tarbela stood at 29,700 cusecs on Friday against its outflows of 20,000 cusecs because its storage level was recorded at 1394.32 feet against its dead level of 1,378 feet.
The inflows in the river Jhelum at Mangla dam stood at 56,550 cusecs on Friday against outflows of 50,000 cusecs. Its water level was recorded at 1,113.5 feet against its dead level of 1,040 feet.
The flows in river Kabul were recorded at 30,400 cusecs on Friday while flows in Chenab stood at 25,000 cusecs. As such, total inflows at rim stations remained 141,717 cusecs on Friday against outflow of 115,467 cusecs.
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