Less Water Storage Causes US $ 29 Bln Economic Losses Annually

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 15th Mar, 2020 ) :Country's economy is facing around US $ 29 billion annually economic losses on account of unutilized flow of river waters into the sea due to less water storage capacity.

Sources told APP here that about 29 million acre feet (MAF) water was going downstream Kotri and falling into the Arabian Sea every year.

They said economic value of 1 MAF water was estimated at US $1 billion as one million acre feet (MAF) water on average irrigated four million acres of land.

They said virgin land could be brought under cultivation by increasing storage capacity in the country. "Our population is increasing day by day and if we keep losing, the day is not far off when people would be on roads due to hunger," they said.

Mangla and Tarbela dams had storage capacity of 7.3MAF and 6MAF, respectively but their capacities had been reduced due to sedimentation. They stressed the need for building dams on war footing in order to take benefit from the unutilized water going every year in the Sea.

Meanwhile, the Indus River System Authority (IRSA) on Sundy released 69,900 cusecs water from various rim stations with inflow of 88,400 cusecs. According to the data released by IRSA, water level in the Indus River at Tarbela Dam was 1448.03 feet, which was 62.03 feet higher than its dead level 1386 feet.

Water inflow in the dam was recorded as 15,800 cusecs and outflow as 5,000 cusecs.

The water level in the Jhelum River at Mangla Dam was 1173.75 feet, which was 133.75 feet higher than its dead level of 1040 feet whereas the inflow and outflow of water was recorded as 27,700 cusecs and 20,000 cusecs respectively.

The release of water at Kalabagh, Taunsa and Sukkur was recorded as 37,800, 40,600 and 28,400 cusecs respectively. Similarly, from the Kabul River a total of 16,500 cusecs of water was released at Nowshera and 28,400 cusecs released from the Chenab River at Marala.

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