Attabad Lake water helps raise Tarbela water table

Around 40,000 cusecs water of the Attabad Lake in Hunza has been gushing into the almost emptied Tarbela Dam since Thursday after the Pakistan Army engineers dynamited the temporary blockade on the lake's spillway on Tuesday.
Punjab Irrigation department sources told Business Recorder that the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) was much worried as the water level in the country's main reservoir had reached near its dead level with only 0.195 MAF left to meet irrigation water needs of the four provinces during the month of March when Rabi crops including wheat, lentils, oilseeds, vegetable were at critical stage of their maturity.
"If the crops had missed their last watering in the current month before harvest next month, their yield would have substantially come down," they added. They said the flow of 40,000 cusecs water into the dam was a big bounty for the hydel power generation and agriculture sector/ food security of the country especially at a time when there were much below normal winter rains this season.
They said Irsa had been releasing 55,000 cusecs water downstream the Tarbela dam against the inflow of water 10,200 cusecs before gushing of the new wave of water into the reservoir. While power generation from 10 out of 14 power generating units of the dam was 1,174 megawatts.
The reservoir was left with only 14 feet of water which was expected to exhaust during next three days leaving Wapda with only one option of operating the spillways on run of the river water which had come down to 9,000 cusecs in the Indus river due to chilly weather and snow fall in the mountainous regions of the country.
According Wapda report about rivers' flows and reservoirs' level on March 2, 33,500 cusecs water was flowing into Tarbela dam against the discharge of 50,000 cusecs. River Kabul was contributing 9,500 cusecs water to the Indus zone. Water flow in river Jhelum had dropped to 6,800 cusecs against the outflow of 39,900 cusecs downstream the Mangla dam. Water flow in river Chenab at Mara was 12,100 cusecs.
The report said that Sindh province was receiving 40,700 cusecs water at Guddu Barrage, 33,200 cusecs at Sukkur and 3,750 cusecs at the last Kotri Barrage on river Indus. Only 0.6 MAF water has been left in the three reservoirs, Tarbela, Mangla and Chashma for releasing into the irrigational canal network of the country.