Wapda grants Rs21.5 billion contract for Indus Basin's telemetry system installation

A contract worth of Rs21.534 billion has been awarded by the Water and power Development Authority (Wapda) for installation of telemetry system at 27 key points on Indus Basin Irrigation System (IBIS) for real-time discharge monitoring.

A Joint Venture (JV) comprising CDigital and HBCC along with Siemens as Sub-Contractor in the JV has been awarded the contract. As per the contract, the telemetry system, after the installation, will be commissioned in December 2026, according to an official statement issued on Wednesday.

The agreement was signed by Chief Engineer and Project Director Indus Telemetry Project Waseem Ali and Chief Executive Officer CDigital Muhammad Ahsan Bashir on behalf of Wapda and the JV respectively in a ceremony held today, the statement added.

Member Irsa (Punjab), Wapda’s Member (Finance), Member (Water), Member (Power), General Manager (Hydro Resource Management) and representatives of 45 Engineering Division, the consultants and the contractors also attended the ceremony.

It is important to note that the Ministry of Water Resources has entrusted Wapda with the crucial task of implementing a Telemetry System on Ibis in order to address the issues of water distribution among the federating units. Approved PC-I of Indus Telemetry Project amounts to Rs23,834 billion.

Earlier this month, it was brought forward by the Punjab government that more water releases to Sindh and less water supplies to Punjab from the Indus have put the filling of Tarbela and Mangla dams on time in jeopardy, The News reported.

The massive withdrawal of water by Sindh and less by Punjab from Tarbela at Indus became the bone of contention between the two federating units.

Punjab irrigation department in its letter shared the 10 days’ data from July 14 to July 23 proving the fact that Irsa has given 26,000 cusecs more water to Sindh (the difference between the share of Sindh and release to Sindh) which can be utilised to irrigate 6.5 million acres of land.