Water losses

Published April 16, 2021

THIS refers to the editorial ‘Water shortages’ (April 7). While building dams to store flood water is ideal, they take 8-10 years to get completed. The editorial has not given much weight to the idea of curtailing water losses in the current system, estimated to be between 20-35 per cent.

Water courses cause a cumulative loss of 12 million acre feet (MAF). Bigger canals, tributaries and minors make their own contributions. The Kalabagh dam, if it ever gets constructed, will have the capability to store six MAF. By curtailing water losses, we may have additional water equivalent of two, repeat two, Kalabagh dams, and that, too, without spending monstrous money and causing political heartburn!

How about replacing these thousands and thousands of water courses with PVC pipes which will not only bring losses down to zero, but would also deliver designed flow to tail-end farmers who are currently helpless? This can be done in less than a year. Turkey has already done it and India is currently doing it. Can we be the next?

S. Nayyar Iqbal Raza
Karachi

Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2021

Opinion

Editorial

Trump 2.0
Updated 07 Nov, 2024

Trump 2.0

It remains to be seen how his promises to bring ‘peace’ to Middle East reconcile with his blatantly pro-Israel bias.
Fait accompli
07 Nov, 2024

Fait accompli

A SLEW of secretively conceived and hastily enacted legislation has achieved its intended result: the powers of the...
IPP contracts
07 Nov, 2024

IPP contracts

THE government expects the ongoing ‘negotiations’ with power producers aimed at revising the terms of sovereign...
Rushed legislation
Updated 06 Nov, 2024

Rushed legislation

For all its stress on "supremacy of parliament", the ruling coalition has wasted no opportunity to reiterate where its allegiances truly lie.
Jail reform policy
06 Nov, 2024

Jail reform policy

THE state is making a fresh attempt to improve conditions in Pakistan’s penitentiaries by developing a national...
BISP overhaul
06 Nov, 2024

BISP overhaul

IT has emerged that the spouses of over 28,500 Sindh government employees have been illicitly benefiting from BISP....