Indus River System Authority (Irsa) Saturday revised its water availability projection, saying that shortfall has reduced to 32 from 45 percent. This was disclosed at a meeting of Irsa with Syed Mazhar Ali Shah in the chair. The meeting was further informed that water shortage would be narrowed down to 20 percent.
Khalid Rana, spokesman, Irsa told reporters that water release to Sindh has been enhanced to 50,000 from 38,000 cusecs due to improvement in inflows, whereas Punjab would get 77,000 from 67,000 cusecs. The share of Balochistan has been enhanced to 6,000 from 5,000 cusecs while Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KP) would be given 3,000 cusecs.
In March, Irsa''s technical committee had worked out 21 per cent water shortage for early Kharif season and decided to give top priority to irrigation needs over power generation for the coming 70 days starting April 1, 2012. "The technical committee has estimated 21 per cent water shortage for early Kharif season commencing April 1 and will conclude by June 10, 2012," sources added.