Sufficient water to meet needs: Irsa

14 May, 2004

Remarkable improvement of water inflows in major rivers of the country especially in Indus, Jhelum, Chenab and Kabul owing to expected snow melting impact from upper parts of NWFP, AJK and Northern Areas.
Talking to APP here on Thursday an official of the Indus River System Authority (IRSA) said that sufficient water is available to meet requirement of the country.
Snow melting process has contributed a lot in water inflows of rivers especially in Indus, Jhelum, Neelum, Chenab and Kabul, he said.
Indus River System Authority (Irsa) said that due to better inflow in rivers, water situation was getting better and further improvement is expected in the next few days.
Giving details about the Mangla Dam, he said water level at Mangla Dam was recorded 1105 ft, which is 65 ft above the dead level 1040 ft.
Water inflow at the dam remained 55,965 cusecs and outflow was recorded 44,000 cusecs. "We are expecting further water level improvement due to the increase of inflow at both the major water reservoirs of the country Tarbela and Mangla." he said.
We are hopeful about further water improvement in major rivers of the country including River Indus and River Jhelum besides in River Chenab and River Kabul, he said.
Enough water will be available to meet country's need in the coming seasons due to heavy snowfall over hills of the country especially in upper parts of Northern Areas and various hilly areas of NWFP and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, he said.
Water level at Tarbela, the biggest water reservoir of the country, was recorded at 1365 16 ft which is the recently declared dead level of the dam according to the decision of the authority instead of 1369 ft.
According to official data released by Indus River System Authority (Irsa) on Thursday, water inflow at Tarbela Dam remained 56,900 cusecs and release was recorded same to meet the need of the provinces of Punjab and Sindh.
When asked about the contribution of River Kabul and River Chenab, he said that contribution of both the rivers was recorded 31,600 cusecs and 29,884 cusecs respectively.

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