The Indus River System Authority(Irsa) has reduced outflow from Mangla dam on the river Jhelum to the minimum level of 15,000 cusecs against the inflow of 60,000 cusecs of water to fill the country's biggest reservoir as early as possible, Flood Forecasting Centre(FFC)told Business Recorder, here on Sunday.
It may be added that Meteorological Department has predicted scanty rains in plain areas of the country during the month of July and erratic rains during the current monsoon season embedded with few extreme events in the monsoon prone areas of the country (upper parts of KP, Punjab and Kashmir). The current pre-monsoon rains in Punjab have already subdued.
FFC said that the water regulatory body has so far filled Mangla dam to the level of 1200 ft, just 42 ft short off its maximum height of 1,242 ft with 4.5 MAF water in its storage. The raised Mangla Dam has the maximum water storage capacity of over 7.4 million acre feet (MAF).
The water managers of the country and prominent agronomists say that filling of the upgraded Mangla dam at the cost of Rs 102 billion to the maximum level is very imperative for the agriculture and industrial development of the nation as the dam would provide 2.88 MAF of additional water for agriculture purposes besides increasing by 12 percent hydropower generation capacity, currently standing at 1,000 megawatt.
Flood situation:
FFC said the river Kabul is in medium flood at Nowshera with the water flow of 81,000 cusecs. The mighty Indus is in low flood at Kalabagh, Chashma and Guddu barrage.
Weather forecast:
Hot and dry weather with humid conditions is expected in most parts of the country during next 3-4 days (before the onset of monsoon). Mainly hot and humid weather is expected in most parts of the country today however, isolated rain-thundershower expected in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, upper/central Punjab, D G Khan Division, Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.
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