Punjab Irrigation department apprehends that the second biggest dam of the country, Mangla Dam, on river Jhelum might not be filled to its raised maximum level of 1242 feet this year due to abnormally low inflow in the river owing to cold and cloudy weather in its catchment areas.
Last year Irsa had filled the dam up to test filling of 1210 ft.
Punjab Irrigation Consultant M. H. Siddiqi told Business Recorder, "As water flow increased early in river Jhelum in months of March, April, May and June, Mangla dam is filled 80 percent by 30th June every year." He said that according to this schedule, 4 million acres feet (MAF) water should have been stored in Mangla dam before 1st July. However, he said the filling of the raised Mangla dam is far behind its schedule as compared to last year, when the mega Dam was filled up to 1158 ft on May 27 against the current level of 1089 ft with the storage of only 0.437 MAF water. He said there are paltry inflows of 44,100 cusecs water each in the mighty Indus river and the Jhelum river, the lowest in a decade, which is being released downstream in the plains of Punjab and Sindh for sowing the Kharif crops including most important cotton crop. Tarbela dam still remains at its dead level of 13 78 ft since there is no extra water in the river for storage.
It is pertinent to mention here that the government of Pakistan has recently completed the Mangla Dam Raising Project costing Rs 97 billion with a view that it would significantly contribute towards socio-economic development of the country, by storing additional 2.9 MAF of water besides generating 644 million additional units of electricity annually from the existing Mangla Power Station. Additional benefits of the project have been estimated Rs18 billion per annum. According to senior WAPDA engineers, the Federal government has approved standard operating procedure (SOP) for filling the dam to its maximum level of 1242 ft and given the go-ahead signal this year subject to availability of water.