Pakistan News And Discussion-12

[Naresh]

[center]<b><span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>River inflows going down due to less rain</span></b> <!--emo&:flush--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Flush.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='Flush.gif' /><!--endemo-->[/center]

LAHORE - The failed monsoon spell has caused a steady depletion in the water resources as well as less inflows into the two major reservoirs Tarbela and Mangla. Punjab irrigation sources expressed their fears that the way the river inflows were going down due to no rains in the catchment areas, they may not b able to fill the dams as per the plan for the next Rabi season.

Explaining the alarming situation, the irrigation department consultant said that the reading of Jehlum river inflow into Mangla was recorded Tuesday at 20 thousand cusecs as against 22 thousand on Monday. As the Mangla command area included the north Punjab cotton belt, much of the water was passed on to the canal network and only 5 thousand cusecs was preserved while the necessary benchmark was at least 10 thousand cusecs. The consultant pointed out that on Monday out of 22000 cusecs, 16500 were passed on to the canal network, while on Tuesday, out of 20000 cusecs, 15000 were passed forward.

The sources pointed out to a somewhat similar situation in Tarbela where from the inflows of 225000 cusecs in the last weeks of July, the water inflows have gone down to 181 thousand on Tuesday from the 188 thousand mark on Monday.

The sources argued that with the inflows decreasing due to now substantial rains in the catchment areas, there was no substantial inflow into the rivers from the tributaries in the above mentioned catchment areas. They pointed out that in the absence of concentrated rains in the above-mentioned areas, the situation was a bit dismal.

Here it may be mentioned that the Monday evening flash flood warning in Chenab was also caused by isolated rains that caused the tributaries to swell temporarily. The irrigation data revealed that while the Chenab swelled to 97000 cusecs Monday evening, <b>it went down to 74000 at 0600 Tuesday morning, further depleting to 70 thousand by Tuesday noon. The irrigation sources argued that the almost nil flood situation was indicative of the overall water shortage.</b>

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