Mangla Dam Raising Project: additional 2.88 million acres feet water to be made available

An additional 2.88 million acre feet (MAF) water will be made available to the country for irrigation purpose after the completion of Mangla Dam Raising Project by April 2008.
Besides, 644 Gigawatt hour (Gwh)additional electricity will also be generated from the existing powerhouse due to the high head of water, said in a briefing to a delegation of participants of the National Defence Course at the National Defence University in Islamabad.
The delegation, headed by Air Vice Marshall, Faaiz Amir, visited Wapda House here on Wednesday. Wapda Member (Water) Muhammad Mushtaq Chaudhry and Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) Managing Director Munawar B Ahmed briefed the delegation about the current water and power scenario in the country. Wapda Chairman Shakil Durrani and Member (Power) Fazal Ahmed Khan were also present on the occasion.
Addressing the delegation, Member (Water) Chaudhry Mushtaq said the increasing population and depleting storage capacity of the water reservoirs in Pakistan call for constructing more than one mega dams without any further delay.
He said that another 22.5 million acres of virgin land can be brought under irrigated agriculture in the country if new mega dams are built. He revealed that Pakistan had already lost water storage capacity by 28 percent on account of sedimentation, which has now come down to 13.17 MAF from 18.37 MAF.
He said that an average of 32.81 MAF of water has been escaping downstream Kotri Barrage annually since 1976. Mushtaq Chaudhry apprised the audience that Pakistan is heading towards a situation of being water short country; as the per capita water availability has already reduced to an alarming figure of 1070 cubic meter in the year 2007.
Referring to the hydropower development projects being executed by Wapda, Member Water said Wapda is vigorously carrying out studies of as many as 12 mega hydropower projects with a total capacity of more than 10,000 MW of electricity mainly including Bunji, Dasu and Kohala etc.
Pepco Managing Director Munawar B Ahmed told the delegation that presently per capita consumption of energy in Pakistan is only 15 million British Thermal Unit (Mbtu) against the world average of 68 Mbtu. This has placed the country in the category of energy deficient countries in the world. He said that a more realistic approach has now been adopted to make Pakistan an energy efficient country.
The delegation was apprised that the reforms are being introduced to make power sector more efficient, customer-friendly and commercially viable on sustainable basis. Pepco MD said load cycle management, energy conservation, loss reduction, revamping generation units and additional generation capacity are being implied for minimising the gap between consumption and generation of electricity in the country.
He said collection of revenue amounting to Rs 410.4 billion, reduction in line losses to 20.6 percent and provision of one million new connections are the major targets for 2007-08. Up to 7,500 more villages will also be electrified in July-December 2007.
Wapda Chairman Shakil Durrani, Member (Water) Muhammad Mushtaq Chaudhry and Pepco MD Munawar B Ahmed responded to the questions raised by the officers of the delegation during Question-Answer session. Wapda Chairman and head of delegation exchanged souvenirs as memento of the visit.