Technical, Advisory Committees' Meetings Postponed: Indus River System Authority

Muhammad Irfan Published March 26, 2020 | 06:46 PM

Indus River System Authority (IRSA) has postponed both meetings of technical and advisory committees for Kharif Season 2020 till normalization of situation due to Coronavirus disease

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Mar, 2020 ) :Indus River System Authority (IRSA) has postponed both meetings of technical and advisory committees for Kharif Season 2020 till normalization of situation due to Coronavirus disease.

"The Novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been scaled to pandemic level and as of 23rd March 2020, 189 countries including Pakistan are under its grip and spread. To control its rapid spread and transmission, the Federal and Provincial Governments of Pakistan have imposed near lock-down to lock-down conditions and also recommended social-distancing of public sector employees and general public. In view of the above explained emergency situation, IRSA has decided to postpone the both meetings," said a notification issued here on Thursday.

In the meantime, IRSA in consultation of Punjab and Sindh has prepared an interim Water Availability and Distribution Criteria for Kharif 2020.

The provinces may place their interim indents looking into the water availability criteria prepared by IRSA till final approval by the Advisory committee at some later date, it further said.

IRSA Director Operation and Spokesman Khalid Idress Rana told APP that sufficient water was available in the reservoirs. "Around 4.4 million acre feet (MAF) of water is available in the dams this year as compared to only 0.77 MAF in the reservoirs last year," he said.

He said it was estimated that total 110 MAF water would be available in the season with zero shortfall.

He said around 13 MAF water would be store in dam while 15 MAF would go into sea with 17 MAF system losses. He said around 70.71 MAF water would be available for irrigation. Out of total, the share of Punjab would be 35 MAF, Sindh 32 MAF, Balochistan 3 MAF and Khybe-Pakhtunkhwa 1 MAF.