Rabi season to face 38pc water shortage: Irsa

ISLAMABAD: The Indus River System Authority (Irsa) on Monday anticipated that Rabi season (winter crops) would face irrigation water shortage of 38 per cent for sowing of major crops including wheat, tobacco, barley, mustard, gram, lentil potatoes, onions and tomatoes.

In Pakistan, Rabi season [winter] starts on October 1 and ends on March 31. This shortage of water more than a third would affect the yield of these important crops, including staple food of wheat that has major share in Pakistanis’ food basket.

Irsa’s Advisory Committee that met here on Monday with the authority’s Chairman Sher Zaman Khan in the chair projected this shortage.

The advisory committee estimated 18.99MAF river inflows during the Rabbi season and said that water storage will stand at 5.89MAF. The Irsa body also projected system losses at 1.73MAF. It is worth mentioning here that earlier, in a parliamentary committee, Irsa member from Sindh had told that Rabi crops would face 50pc water shortage.

Regarding the previous Kharif (April-Sept) season that ended on Sept 30, 2018, total water shortage was recorded at 21pc. Punjab faced 20pc shortage, Sindh 17pc, Balochistan 44pc and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 33pc. The committee also anticipated that water flow below Kotri barrage would be 0.04MAF and water availability at canal head had been estimated at 23.11MAF.

Met official briefed the Irsa body that winter rains will be below normal. Irsa’s advisory committee asked provinces to use better management techniques to utilise the available resource. It was also stressed on vigilant monitoring. Met official forecasts no rains in October and November. In late December and January may be rainfall but in upper areas only.

The body allocated 12.18MAF water share for Punjab, 9.21MAF for Sindh, 0.70MAF for KP and 1.02MAF for Balochistan. It was informed that total 23.11MAF water would be available during Rabbi crops 2018-19 starting from October 2018 to March 2019.

On Monday, inflow in Indus at Tarbela stood at 51,300 cusecs and outflow 100,000 cusecs, inflow in the Kabul River at Nowshera was 9,700 cusecs and outflow 9,700 cusecs, inflows in River Jhelum at Mangla was 9,100 cusecs and outflow 15,000 cusecs, , inflow in River Chenab at Marala was 20,500 cusecs and outflow 6,000 cusecs.

The inflows and outflows of River Indus at Tarbela and Chashma, River Kabul at Nowshera and River Jhelum at Mangla have been reflected as mean flows of 24 hours; whereas, the other flows have been gauged at 6.00a.m. The meeting was attended by officials of Wapda, Secretary Punjab, Secretary Sindh, representatives of Balochistan and KP. DG Pakistan Met Dept also attended the meeting.