LAHORE, Sept 30: The Punjab expects eight per cent water shortage in the Rabi season starting on Wednesday (today), as against 30 to 35 per cent during the last two years.

The Indus River System Authority (Irsa) has indicated a shortage of 11 per cent for the season and called a meeting of its technical committee on Thursday (tomorrow) to finalize the estimate. The Punjab, however, thinks that recent rains have improved the baseflow of rivers to bring the water shortage down to eight per cent for the season.

The Punjab has prepared the canal rotation plan on the basis of 11 per cent shortage and hopes to effect the necessary changes in it after the meeting of Irsa’s advisory committee on Oct 10, where the actual share of each province would be finalized.

According to the current canal closure plan, the Punjab will close its non-perennial canals in the cotton zone on Oct 5 and perennial canals on Oct 11. The latter would remain closed till Oct 31.

The non-perennial canals in the rice zone, normally closed by Oct 15, would this year be shut off on Oct 20. It is because the fine varieties of rice have still not reached the maturing stage.

The non-perennial canals would be opened for 15 days of wheat-sowing from Nov 11 to 25.

The Punjab has withheld its post-November water transmission plan because the Irsa is yet to finalize the shortage for the season and the provincial share based on it.

An official of the Punjab Irrigation Department said that Punjab had been preparing its canal plan with a view to provide maximum water to farmers at the beginning of the season. “The growers somehow manage to water the wheat crop once they have sown it. They either resort to the costly process of pumping out subsoil water or get nature’s help in the form of rains. But nobody can help if nothing is sown.”

Good rainfall this year has provided relief to the planners by increasing the baseflow of all river that helped both the major dams to some extent.

According to the dam-operating criteria, Irsa has been hoping that Tarbela drops to 1,530 feet by Sept 30. But on Tuesday, the lake level stood at 1,541.17 feet, a relief of 11.17 feet. Similarly, it expected Mangla lake to go down to a level of 1,190 feet, but it was still 1,201.6 feet — some 11.6 feet higher than expected. The cumulative relief of 22.77 feet could provide the country with an additional 20 days of irrigation supply. Last year, both the dams had hit the dead level by Feb 18. Going by that logic, both lakes could be expected to last up to the beginning of March this time. The Punjab hopes to make them last till March 31, the last day of Rabi season.

Meanwhile, the combined river flow on Tuesday experienced some drop because of reduced rains in northern parts of the country and the drop in temperature. The total river supply stood at 122,800 cusecs. The Indus came down to 59,700 cusecs at Tarbela, Kabul to 17,900 cusecs at Nowshehra, Jehlum to 20,500 cusecs at Mangla and Chenab to 24,700 cusecs at Marala.

According to the Water and Power Development Authority, around 20.114 million acre feet of water has already escaped (to sea) downstream Kotri since June 20, which is almost double the storage capacity of both dams.