LAHORE, May 21: With water situation in the country improving, Punjab on Wednesday protested the distribution formula calling it “disastrous for cotton crop” in four crucial districts of southern Punjab, which produce over four million bales of cotton.

In a letter to the Indus River System Authority (Irsa), the Punjab government said the distribution formula hurt cotton sowing in Dera Ghazi Khan, Rahim Yar Khan, Rajanpur and Muzaffargarh, which produced over four million bales.

Punjab Irrigation Department officials say Irsa calculates the entire river inflow and distributes it to province, regardless of which river falls in which area. Punjab falls on the last priority position when it comes to distributing water. On the Indus arm, Punjab stands at the fourth position. Balochistan and the NWFP get the first priority and Sindh gets the second because of practical reasons. After meeting the requirements of the three provinces, very little is left for Punjab, they says.

According to the formula, the overall share of the province on the Indus arm drops by at least 30 to 40 per cent, hitting all those areas that fall on it. For particularly these areas, the shortage goes up to 70 to 80 per cent depending on the time.

The Punjab government is asked to get its share from the Jhelum and Chenab rivers. But, the province cannot feed these four districts from the Chenab and Jhelum rivers because of problems. Thus water requirements of these areas mostly go unmet. It is not a point of cutting or reducing share, but delivering water where it is required and save the crops. Irsa should start partially feeding Sindh from the Mangla Dam and the river Chenab and correspondingly increase its provincial share from the Indus River. The provincial share must not be taken in terms of quantity and digits, but it is a matter of farming, which must be part of national, rather than provincial picture, they say.

If cotton production falls by even one million bales because of water problems in the four districts, the country would suffer a loss of billions of rupees. The timing of water distribution is as crucial as water itself.

Also, water availability in the rivers improved on Wednesday, with flow in the Indus touching 105,000 cusecs, Kabul 47,480, Jhelum 55,000 and Chenab 37,400 cusecs. Even though the flow was still much less than the last year when the Indus was flowing at 154,000 cusecs and Kabul at 84,000 cusecs, but the situation certainly started improving.