Tarbela on 'dead' level: Punjab blames Irsa, Sindh for water crisis

The country's main water reservoir on river Indus, Tarbela has prematurely reached its dead level at a critical stage of the Rabi crops flowering and maturity that would reduce per acre yield especially of wheat this year. Punjab Irrigation department engineers told Business Recorder that they were preparing an emergency plan to supply water to the crops till March 15 at least through the perennial canals in the province.
The department has already closed all non-perennial canals. Presently Punjab is drawing 34,000 cusecs from the Mangla zone and 21,000 cusecs from the Indus zone which would come down to minimum as Mangla dam would also reach its dead level in a couple of days and only run of the river water would be available for release into the water channels. They said the last watering to the Rabi crops nearing maturity is normally given after March 20 therefore, some areas would miss the vital canal water supply this season if there were not sufficient rains in the second half of March.
Senior Irrigation engineers, who wished not to be named, accused the water regulatory body Irsa and the Sindh government for throwing more than 2.2 MAF precious water into the sea during October to December when all water releases downstream the Kotri Barrage on river Indus are stopped to conserve water for sowing, growing and maturing the strategic winter crops including wheat, lentils, grams, oil seeds, vegetables, fodder etc till middle of April.
They said that release of large quantities of water downstream the Tarbela dam on river Indus was unnecessary after October 2011, since lower Sindh had suffered heavily and remained inundated by the abnormal monsoon rains last year. Giving a comparison of water availability during 2010-11 and the current year, Punjab canal regulator said water level in Tarbela dam on March 7, 2011 was 1,419 ft (0.8 MAF water) against its dead level of 1,378 ft on March 7, 2012. Similarly river water inflows were also larger than the current inflows in the four live rivers.
Meanwhile Wapda spokesman has clarified that water releases from Tarbela and Mangla reservoirs are always made in accordance with Irsa indent. This season, Irsa's indent, remained higher than that of the last year, due to which water level plummeted so quickly.
He pointed out that dams were constructed, primarily, for irrigation purposes, and hydel electricity is always generated through the water released as per Irsa indent. Convenor Punjab Water Council Farooque Bajwa has severely criticised Irsa for mismanagement of the available water resources and demanded that water distribution and releases should not be left on the government servants who succumb to pressure from the Ministry of Water and Power.
He said due to missing of the third watering in some areas under cultivation, Punjab is likely to produce 2.5 million tons less wheat causing a loss of Rs 25 billion to the already hard pressed farmers. He said it was a criminal act to throw 2.2 MAF valuable irrigation water into the sea for the purpose of hydel power generation at the cost of agriculture sector and strategic national food security.
He demanded that agriculturalists associations, farmers' representatives and water experts from across the country should be included into Irsa to give their recommendations for the release of water downstream the dams keeping in view water needs of different areas so that such crises did not occur in future.
He said an independent body should be set up to investigate mismanagement and uneconomical use of the scare water resources, putting the political, economic and social stability of the country at stake. Meanwhile, the Meteorological department has forecast mainly dry weather in most parts of the country on Thursday, however rain/thunderstorm with light snow over the hills likely at isolated places of Malakand, Hazara, Islamabad/Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Lahore divisions, Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir on Wednesday night.