HYDERABAD, March 24: Acute shortage of water at Kotri Barrage has pressed the panic button in the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) Hyderabad, to replenish it’s water lagoons for 15 days keeping in mind the fact that existing shortage, according to irrigation officials, is going to persist for around three weeks.

When contacted, the Managing Director of Wasa, Bashir Awan, maintained that he had asked the concerned executive engineers to fill all the water reservoirs for meeting water requirement of the district that required around 60 million gallons of water daily from its new and old filter plants and four other reservoirs of Hala Naka, Paretabad, unit-4 Latifabad and Hussainabad.

Wasa would start lifting water from its turbine established at upstream Kotri and that normally functions in closure period of the barrage. According to Wasa, it lifts 30MG water daily from upstream and now it would operate from Tuesday morning to lift required supply of water for storage purpose in water lagoons.

There are three lagoons of Wasa that have an overall capacity of 750 to 800 million gallons following desilting of two old lagoons and creation of one more. Earlier, the capacity of the lagoons stood at 470 million gallons. The city requires 60 MG water on a daily basis and, at present, 10 days of water storage is available in the three lagoons.

According to irrigation officials, given the requirement of water under water accord, currently around 50 to 60 per cent of water shortage was being experienced in the three barrages nowadays and the situation was not going to improve before two to three weeks. “At least 40,000 cusec of water is needed if we talk about water needs during the current month”, said an official.

Discharges for the four off-taking canals have been too scant despite the fact that two of the canals — Akram Wah and Kalri Baghar Feeder- which supplies water to Karachi. The KB feeder needs around 1,200 cusec of water daily to ensure supply of 1,000 cusec of water to Karachi through Keenjhar lake in Thatta district that is fed by KB feeder. The authorities are finding it too hard to provide water supply for drinking purpose.

Likewise, around 500 to 600 cusec of water is lifted daily by Wasa and current availability of water stood at 2,500 cusec. The water is being released in non-perennial canals of Pinyari and New Phulelli that feeds parts of Badin, Tando Mohammad Khan and Thatta districts. Non-availability of water has increased possibility of highly contaminated water for drinking purposes as required dilution of wastewater with fresh one is not taking place.

Mr Awan said that although he had not been informed till Monday about the situation but he would call for lifting of water through its 30MGD turbine at Kotri barrage upstream to ensure storage of water for 15 days. Besides old, new and old filter plants that has an overall capacity of 40MGD of water the four other water reservoirs provide 20mgd of water to the city.

Sounding alarm bell about acute shortage of water in the River Indus, Kotri Barrage the chief engineer Manzoor Ahmed Shaikh has said that water supply from the barrage has been seriously affected, reports our bureau.

In a statement, he said that the situation could be gauged from the fact that only 2,500 cusecs of water was available at the upstream of the barrage.

Under the circumstances, he said, after three days no water for agriculture purpose would be available in the canals originating from the barrage. He added that water would be released only into Akram Wah and K.B. Feeder for drinking purpose for the people of lower Sindh and Karachi.

The chief engineer urged the departments concerned depending on Indus waters to store enough water to meet the requirements of the people. He made it clear that there was no possibility of any increase in the Indus waters for the next two to three weeks.

He, however, said that as soon as the situation improved, water for drinking purpose would be released into the canals.

He said that the present situation was beyond human control, therefore, the people should pray to God.