The Indus River System Authority (Irsa) and provincial governments on Wednesday joined hands to discard the faulty telemetry system, despite directives of Prime Minister's Inspection Commission in which the water regulator was asked to immediately take over the system.
However, the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) which is responsible for smooth functioning of the system, agreed to dispatch the project director in provinces to remove their apprehensions which had already been taken up with the President and Prime Minister.
This interesting development was recorded in five-hour inter-provincial meeting of Indus River System Authority (Irsa) held here on Wednesday, under the chairmanship of Shafqat Masood, Irsa chief. The meeting was attended by the Irsa members and provincial representatives.
Official sources told Business Recorder that Wapda was told in clear terms that the water regulator would not take over the project until it is made accurate and reliable after removing all the technical defects.
The second most important agenda item was water theft complaints of the provinces against each other and it was decided to have fresh countrywide assessments on water losses in rivers and from one barrage to the next one.
The water losses assessment process will be completed in two years and the Irsa will finalise Terms of Reference (ToRs) to carry out the task as Punjab and Sindh continued to blame each other of providing wrong figures to water regulatory authority in the garb of losses.
The authority had called the meeting on provinces' water losses complaints and since it received directives from PMIC for taking over charge of telemetry system as the Wapda submitted its report before the inspection commission that everything was fine and it was functioning properly.
Later Irsa Chairman Shafqat Masood confirmed the development however saying that the Wapda's project director would visit the provinces to ensure that the system works up to their satisfaction. "Definitely we will not take over the system until it functions accurately," he added.
In response to a question, he further said that the issue of water losses was taken up after "abnormal losses" report received from the provinces during the last two-three weeks. "The water losses have curtailed to 28 percent," he responded to a question when asked about reported up to 70 percent losses from Sukkur to Kotri Barrage.
"Water losses are presumed as 15 percent in average on countrywide basis. The Irsa will arrange fresh measurement of the water losses not only from Taunsa to Guddu and Sukkur to Kotri barrages but all the rivers where water reaches," he added.
Another official told that the representative of Sindh demanded revision of reservoirs operational plan, but it was rejected by other stakeholders, saying that the existing operational plan would remain in vogue.