The three days of rains and snowfall in the upper regions of the country have added more than 0.5 MAF water in the two main reservoirs, Tarbela and Mangla for irrigating the worst drought hit Rabi crops during the next two months. The live water storage in the two dams has risen from 0.85 MAF to 1.46 MAF in four days due to significant increase in the inflows of river Indus and Jhelum, Kabul and Chenab.
The Water and Power Development Authority's (Wapda) report about river flows and reservoirs level on Thursday said that more than 82,000 cusecs was flowing in the four rivers as against last Monday's inflow of 34,000 cusecs at the rim stations.
The river Indus inflow at Tarbela was 19,800 cusecs as against outflow of 10,000 cusecs, Jhelum river inflow 28,400, outflow 18,000, Chenab river inflow 14,500 and river Kabul inflow at 19, 300 cusecs at Nowshera. The live storage in Tarbela is 0.834 MAF, Mangla 0.518 MAF, and Chashma 0.120 MAF. The rivers are likely to retain this inflow during the next few days.
In Sindh, Guddu barrage on river Indus is receiving 28,000 cusecs water upstream and releasing 25,300 cusecs water downstream towards the Sukkur Barrage, the lifeline of agriculture sector of the province. Out of 20,600 cusecs inflowing water, the irrigation department is releasing 3200 cusecs water downstream the remodelled Sukkar barrage towards the Kotri barrage.
The Punjab Water Council has demanded of the regulatory Indus River System Authority (Irsa) to reopen the Chashma Jhelum Link Canal with 13,160 cusecs water to irrigate wheat and other rabi crops over 13.5 million acres of lands in the districts of Bhakar, Jhang, Muzaffargarh, Toba Tek Singh, Khanewal, Multan, Vehari, Lodharan and Bahwalpur. It said there is now enough water in the reservoirs to provide water to crops in south Punjab.
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