Punjab Water Council (PWC) has strongly protested against release of additional water from the two main reservoirs, Tarbela and Mangla to augment hydel power generation for bridging the widening gap between demand and supply, which has risen to 6,000 MW.
PWC convenor Farooque Bajwa said that water stored in the dams/reservoirs during the Monsoon season is meant for sowing and maturing of Rabi crops including strategic wheat, grams, canola, sunflower, oil seeds, vegetables and fodder etc. This valuable irrigation water cannot be used for power generation at the cost of agriculture sector.
Bajwa said that the country is already facing 10 percent shortage of water for Rabi crops, therefore, there was no justification for using precocious irrigation water to produce electricity. Bajwa said that the Pepco should sort out its financial problems with the IPPs and PSO and get maximum electricity from other than hydel sources.
It may be added that according to 28th September rivers flows and reservoirs level report of Wapda, Irsa is releasing 92,000 cusecs water downstream the Tarbela dam against the run of the Indus river flow of 63,000 cusecs. It is releasing 29,000 cusecs from the Mangla dam, as against the river Jhelum flow of 20,000 cusecs.
A Pepco spokesman said that with these additional water discharges from the two major reservoirs, Pepco's hydel power generation units at Tarbela and Mangla dams contributed 500 MW more electricity to the national grid on Wednesday. Expressing surprise over the additional water releases from the dams without consent of the provinces, senior Punjab Irrigation officials said that none of the provinces had requested Irsa for additional water releases from the dams, as the Kharif crops are yet to be harvested and sowing of winter Rabi crops would start in the middle of next month.
Punjab Irrigation Canal Regulator M.H. Siddiqui said that Punjab needed 20,000 cusecs water from the Mangla zone at this stage of the Kharif crops, rice, cotton, sugarcane, which is the exact current flow of river Jhelum. He said release of additional 9,000 cusecs irrigation water from the Mangla dam would go waste.
Irrigation department sources told that the Federal Ministry of Water and Power had prevailed upon Irsa to release additional water from the dams to the hydel powerhouses for three days, which stood at 6,495 MW on Wednesday. Meanwhile Irsa's advisory committee, comprising senior irrigation and agriculture officials of the four provinces is meeting in Islamabad tomorrow (Friday) to review the water availability and approve water distribution among the provinces for sowing and maturing Rabi crops from Ist October to 31st March 2012.
According to Wapda report, about 11.8 MAF water has been stored in Tarbela, Mangla and Chashma reservoirs during the outgoing monsoon season for Rabi crops, Tarbela 6.568 MAF, Mangla, 5.063 MAF and Chashma 0.244 MAF water. Meanwhile vast areas of Indus delta and lower Sindh continue to be submerged in the water as Sindh Irrigation department is releasing 1,62,585 cusecs water downstream the Kotri barrage.
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