IRSA approves water quotas for Rabi season
A total of 31.70 million acre ft water will be made available to the provinces
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Indus River System Authority (IRSA) advisory committee on Wednesday has approved water quotas of provinces for Rabi season while Balochistan representative has alleged Sindh of water theft during the meeting.
Punjab and Sindh will get less water than the reserved quotas. Chashma Barrage will remain closed from January 1 to January 15, 2016. Wapda had moved a request to shutdown the barrage.
A meeting of IRSA’s advisory committee was held which was headed by Chairman Raqeeb Khan. He said that Punjab and Sindh would get at least 14 percent less water than earlier. The committee approved 12.90 million acre-ft water for Sindh, 17.08 for Punjab, 0.70 for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan will get 1.02 million acre-ft water for Rabi season.
A total of 31.70 million acre-ft water will be made available in the Rabi season.
Sources said that Balochistan’s IRSA member alleged Sindh during the meeting of water theft. He said that the province deprived Balochistan of at least 15 lac acre-ft water in last six months.
Punjab’s representative Rao Arshad said that at least 3.6 crore acre-ft water has been wasted in Punjab in the past six months which cost the government around Rs 60 billion. He urged the government to take practical steps to construct Bhasha, Kala Bagh and Manda dams.
