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Punjab, Sindh to have ‘water ceasefire’ this year
By Ahmad Ahmadani
ISLAMABAD: The ages-old water dispute between Punjab and Sindh is to settle down, for the time being at least, during the ongoing year, as Indus River System Authority (IRSA) has offered the two provinces additional supply of water, it is learnt on reliable authority.
“Though water dispute between Punjab and Sindh has a long history, it would not surface during the current year following the IRSA’s offer to supply additional water to both the provinces during the ongoing year,” said a senior official at IRSA, wishing to stay nameless. He believed the water row between both provinces was unlikely this year because, according to him, a recent spell of rain that lasted during last ten days in the country raised the water storage level of the two dams, Tarbela and Mangla.
“For the time being, the concerns regarding reaching the dead level with regard to water storage at the sites of both dams are no more. The IRSA is now ready to provide additional water to Punjab and Sindh so that they could meet their water demands,” top seated functionaries at the Centre’s water and power ministry stated.
The officials claimed they would arrange enough water for agriculture sector mainly to facilitate the farmers, which, they said, in result, would positively impact this sector in the form of increasing the earnings. “It would be for the first time in the last seven years that water storage level at both dams would not end in the month of March,” the officials said. At present, the IRSA is supplying 37,000 cusecs of water to Sindh, 6,000 cusecs to Punjab, 3,000 cusecs to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and 4,000 cusecs to Balochistan to meet water demands.
The sources said a meeting of IRSA’s technical committee has been summoned on March 25 to determine the availability of water, provincial quota and losses expected in the upcoming Kharif season. Recommendation of the IRSA’s technical committee would be sent to an advisory committee, which, on March 31, would approve water quotas for all the provinces, the officials added. Pakistan is mainly an agrarian country whose 70 per cent population resides in rural areas and depends on agriculture for livelihood.
Agriculture sector contributes to around 24 per cent of the GDP and almost 48.4 per cent of the overall labour force is employed in this sector. Moreover, 70 per cent of the Pakistani exports depend on the agricultural products.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk