LAHORE, March 4: The Mangla Dam will hit the dead level by Thursday (tomorrow) and Tarbela Dam within three days, leaving wheat crop on the run of the river supplies and exposing the country to food insecurity during the next year.

If there is no rain or massive snowmelt in the next week or so, the wheat crop, which has already missed sowing target by a staggering 200,000 acres, with 70 per cent of it sown late, will be exposed to drought threat.

Should that happen, the country will end up importing over three million tons of wheat, putting an additional pressure on country’s foreign exchange reserves, fear farmers and wheat traders from the city.

On Tuesday, both dams have only 200,000 million acres feet of water against 2.2maf last year on the corresponding day - less than 10 per cent of what the country had last year, says an official of the Indus River System Authority (Irsa).

“Currently, the reservoirs are contributing over 20,000 cusec water, in addition to run of the river supplies. If river flow goes down further, which is feared, the dams could hit dead level earlier than apprehended by Irsa,” he said.

“In fact, the Irsa's water calculations have gone grossly wrong," says an official of the Punjab Irrigation Department.

“Punjab had maintained that there would be 28 per cent shortage in the rest of Kharif season, but Irsa revised it downwards to 22 per cent. Thus, provinces placed their indent on the basis of 22 per cent shortage and overdrew water from the dams. Both dams, which should have served the country till last week of April, have been hitting dead level in the first week of March, leaving the country and wheat crop on the mercy of the Mother Nature. If there is rain, wheat crop could be saved. But if there is not, it would be in for a disaster,” he said.Explaining the Irsa miscalculations, another official of the Punjab Irrigation Department says that the authority based its calculations on what the snowmelt would contribute to Mangla Dam. “One cannot predict snowmelt contribution with any measure of certainty because it depends on fluctuating weather conditions. On Monday, inflow in Mangla Dam was 23,000 cusecs, which dropped to 12,000 cusecs next day as weather turned less hot,” he said.

Snowmelt contribution was a point of contention between Irsa and Punjab calculations, in which the latter was turning out to be correct, he said.

“Both Sindh and Punjab have substantial requirements to irrigate their maturing wheat crop and cannot afford to cut their indent at this stage," says Farooq Bajwa of the Punjab Water Council. But the government must launch an inquiry to find out who made such grossly wrong calculations, exposing country's food security to a substantial danger, he suggested.

“Even currently, the Irsa is caught in inconsequential fights like which province should run which canal instead of concentrating on the actual cause of the problem - wrong calculations leading to overdrawn dams and making them hit dead level in the first week of March. The Irsa, as a federal body, should be dealing with the disease, not symptoms and should be a platform to resolve disputes rather than taking provincial fights to the federal level and become part of the problem,” he claimed.