LAHORE: Rabi (winter) crops, starting next month, are likely to face a shortfall of at least 7.2 million acre feet (MAF) of irrigation water on precarious supplies as exiting storage capacity in the country fell short to hold excessive inflows, officials said on Monday.
The officials told The News that maximum water availability is estimated at around 28.8MAF for rabi season (Oct 1 to March 31) against the country’s irrigation requirement of 36MAF.They attributed the shortfall to limited storage capacity that led to wastage in surplus water produced by the excessive inflows in outgoing summer.
Officials said there was a surplus water of more than nine million acre feet during the kharif (summer crops) season. The officials said cultivation of strategic wheat crop, which is a staple food, is feared to be adversely affected due to imminent water shortage.
Main reason of water scarcity has been lack of storage capacity in the main rivers that lets about 9.30MAF surplus water to escape below Kotri Barrage into the sea without meeting irrigation and drinking needs upstream. Officials said around 70 percent of additional river supplies of kharif season could be used for supplementing shortage during the lean period of rabi.
And, remaining water could be allowed to flow into the sea to partially meet environmental flow needs of delta, they added. “There should be equilibrium in fulfilling irrigation needs and environmental flows to Indus delta,” an official said. “Preference can only be given to irrigation and drinking requirements over environmental flows.”
An irrigation expert said water scarcity could have further been aggravated had Tarbela dam not been filled to its maximum storage level of 1,550-foot level during the kharif seaon.
The expert said water establishment of the country took decision in mid-summer about abrupt slowing down of water conservation in Tarbela dam, sparking fear of low water storage in the dam on the pretext of safety precautions.
The expert, however, said some sanity prevailed later and the same water establishment had to take decision of speeding water impounding in the Tarbela dam just before dwindling Indus flows, forgetting all the safety concerns.
“That helped in attaining the maximum conservation level of Tarbela dam and subsequently increasing water availability of the lean period.” The irrigation expert further said Mangla dam could not be filled to maximum storage level this year, “mainly due to low flows in the late kharif season.”
“Imagine if we end up with water of below storage capacity in both the dam this year, which is a very much possibility due to varied reason, there would be extreme shortage of water in rabi and early kharif 2018,” the expert added. “It could be catastrophic for crops and could unleash a serious conflict among provinces, espcially Punjab and Sindh.”