ISLAMABAD, July 28: The Indus River System Authority (Irsa) decided on Monday to proportionately deplete storage from Mangla and Tarbela dams to meet provincial water shares for the remaining Kharif season even in the event of overall shortage.

The provinces have been asked to submit fresh water requirement plans strictly on the basis of pressing demands by August 1 for the remaining two months of the Kharif season.

The decision was taken at a meeting of Irsa presided over by its chairman Bashir Ahmad Dahar.

Mr Dahar told reporters after the meeting that the authority had estimated a water shortage of 1.3 per cent in March which increased to 13 per cent in the early Kharif season. However, the provinces continued to get more than their share, he added.

He said that rains in dam’s catchment areas were lower than expected in recent days and temperatures also dropped in Skardu and Gilgit. As a result, overall river flows reduced significantly from 500,000 cusec to 280,000 cusec.

Mr Dahar said that Meteorological Department’s director general Qamar-uz-Zaman had informed the meeting that rains were expected in lower and southern Sindh over the next 48 hours and normal monsoon rains throughout the country from August 10 to 15. Therefore, there is nothing to worry about water availability in the coming days.

Informed sources said the provinces had been initially informed that Irsa wanted to cut their water shares to ensure maximum carryover for the Rabi season because of higher than estimated water shortage. The move, however, was strongly opposed by representatives of Punjab and Sindh and it was decided with consensus to provide sufficient water to the provinces even if reservoir storage depleted.

Mr Dahar said that Tarbela dam had the storage capacity of 6.841 million acre feet (MAF) and the current storage stood at about 4.6 MAF. And the dam still has the capacity for the water level to rise by 42 feet. Likewise, another 22 feet of water could be stored in Mangla dam.

The sources said that Irsa had already stopped filling Tarbela dam due to higher provincial demands and water was being released for downstream irrigation requirements. They said that provincial indents were quite high at present, but Irsa was providing about 128,000 cusec to Sindh and 111,000 cusec to Punjab; about 10,400 cusec is going downstream Kotri.

Sindh demanded that both the reservoirs should be depleted on a proportionate basis to ensure equitable water availability to the provinces. Punjab opposed it and wanted to maintain maximum water availability in Mangla dam for Rabi.

SINDH-BALOCHISTAN DISPUTE: In a related development, the ministry of water and power has ordered the appointment of Wapda observers at Kirthar and Garang canals carrying water from Sindh to Balochistan so that the latter could get its due share without cuts.