The Indus River System Authority (IRSA) has increased water outflows from the Tarbela dam on river Indus and Mangla dam on river Jhelum to irrigate winter crops and augment hydel power generation for bridging the wide gap between demand and supply.
Official sources told Business Recorder here on Sunday that IRSA was releasing 30,000 cusecs water from Tarbela Dam, up from 25,000 cusecs and 20,000 cusecs from Mangla Dam up from 15,000 cusecs on Monday.
The water distribution body among the provinces had stopped regular water releases from the dams due to month-long closure of irrigation canals across the country for the purpose of annual de-silting of the water channels.
Sources said that Punjab Irrigation department would start reopening the closed canals as the river water reaches their water heads/regulators in a couple of days.
Meanwhile Director General Agriculture Extension Services Punjab Dr Anjum Ali has apprehended that due to drought conditions and much below the average rains in the months of December and January, the Punjab province might miss the grams production target of 539,000 tons set for this year.
Talking to Business Recorder Dr Ali said that the grams/lentils crops had been sown over rain fed (Barani) area of 2,370,000 acres of land largely in the districts of Mianwali, Khushab, Bhakkar, Layyah, Jhang and Muzaffargarh.
He said the rains dependent gram crops urgently need two to three good spells of rains so that these crops should receive 7 to 8 mm watering to keep alive prospects of a good yield and meet the production target.
Meanwhile Director General Meteorological department Dr Arif Mahmood has said that total amount of precipitation during the winter season (January-March) is expected to remain 10-20 percent below normal.
According to Meteorological experts the rains in January 2012 remained 25-30 percent bellow normal. However, they said that in the month of February a few good rains are expected in the second half of the month which would neutralise the first drier half. In this way February is expected to receive normal amount of precipitation.
In March 2012, due to increased convection, localised precipitation events will occur producing about 15 to 20 percent above normal rains during the month.