HARIPUR, May 23: The Khanpur Dam authorities are mulling to cut the irrigation water supply to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab owing to fast decreasing water level in the lake mainly due to dry weather, official sources told Dawn here on Monday.

“We may stop irrigation water supply to KP and Punjab by the end of current month because the water level is depleting at the rate of one and half inches daily and we have to ensure uninterrupted municipal supply to our beneficiaries,” said an official requesting anonymity.

He said that dam's catchment areas in upper Hazara division and Murree hills have not received rainfall during the whole current month due to which the inflow of water had considerably reduced thus forcing the dam administration to consider suspending irrigation water supply by the end of this month.

According to statistics gathered from official sources, on Monday afternoon the water level was 1965.6 feet, inflow 85.58 cusecs and outflow 183.31 cusecs while the seepage and evaporation was recorded at around 100 cusecs.

The outflow for beneficiaries included 50 cusecs to Capital Development Authority Islamabad; Facto Cement factory, 2.18 cusecs; Heavy Industries Taxila, 2 cusecs; and Pakistan Management Organisation, Julian 1 cusec.

While the supply to KP for irrigation purposes was 83 cusecs from both the right and left canals and for Punjab the irrigation discharge from both the canals was recorded at 45 cusecs.

Built in early eighties, the Khanpur Dam had been fulfilling municipal as well as agriculture needs of its beneficiaries in the two provinces and Capital City of Islamabad from its two canals. The 18km long left bank canal, according to official sources, has the capacity of transporting 440 cusecs of water at a time while the quantity fluctuates as per demand and available quantity of water in the reservoir.