Pakistan has developed 13 percent storage capacity of the average annual water flows as compared to the world average of 40 percent. This was told during a briefing to the delegation of the 91st National Management Course of National Management College (NMC), Lahore here at Wapda House on Monday.
Wapda Member (Finance) Chaudhry Abdul Qadeer, Managing Director (Administration) Naveed Akram Cheema, Wapda Secretary Imtiaz Tajwar and other senior officers concerned also attended the briefing. General Manager Diamer-Basha Dam Project Dr Izhar-ul-Haq and Pepco Managing Director Tahir Basharat Cheema briefed the delegation on water and power sector respectively.
The delegation was informed that the gross storage capacity of Tarbela, Mangla and Chashma reservoirs, originally used to be 15.74 million acre feet (MAF) had now reduced to 11.61 MAF due to natural process of silting. It was further stated that per capita water availability in Pakistan had gone down to an alarming extent of 1038 cubic meter.
The delegation was apprised that additional 20.39 million acres of cultivable land could be brought under irrigated agriculture if water was made available by building new dams. Dilating upon the on-going projects, General Manager Diamer-Basha Dam Project, told the delegation that Wapda was executing five dams, three mega canals, two drainage and five hydropower projects.
As many as two projects in water sector and two projects in hydropower sector including Diamer-Basha Dam were ready for the construction, it was added. Pepco MD, during his briefing on power sector, informed that about 9800 MW of electricity would be added to the national grid by December 2012.
Giving a rundown on the supply and demand side measures for mitigating electricity shortfall, he said that the issue of load-shedding would be resolved soon. Later, Wapda Member (Finance) and head of the delegation exchanged the souvenirs as memento of the visit.