According to Indus River System Authority (IRSA), provinces will face 18% shortfall of water in the cultivation of different crops during Kharif season starting from April 1st, they stated on Friday.
While providing a briefing to the media after the meeting of the advisory committee finished, Irsa spokesperson Khalid Rana said 110 million acre feet (maf) of water would be available in the Kharif season, of which 67 maf would be utilised to irrigate agriculture fields.
Of this, Punjab will receive 33.23 maf and Sindh will get 30.39 maf. The share of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) will be 0.82 maf whereas Balochistan will receive 2.6 maf.
All provinces had their representative in the advisory committee meeting that was held to finalise water shares of provinces for the sowing season.
Earlier in the week, Irsa’s technical committee had highlighted in a meeting that 40pc of water would be lost on the Indus River in the early Kharif season, but the level would be steadily brought down to 20%.
10pc water loss will be faced in early Kharif by Jhelum and Chenab rivers, which will get reduced to zero later on. Rana also mentioned that the advisory committee had estimated a loss of 35pc on the Indus River, which will hopefully be reduced to zero later on. Â
He pointed out that 27.3 maf of water would be supplied in the early season and later 82.32 maf would be available.
As per data released for the previous Rabi season from October to March, provinces utilised 28.3 maf of water against the anticipated 28.2 maf. Punjab utilised 15.11 maf, Sindh 11.65 maf, K-P 0.54 maf and Balochistan 1.07 maf.
In Kharif, 52.26 maf of water will be available in the Indus River, 17.26 maf in Kabul River, 17.16 maf in Jhelum River and 20.94 maf in Chenab River.
Rana also notified that provinces would start receiving water on Friday according to their demand. The Kharif season starts from April and its main crops are rice, maize (corn), moong, cotton and sugarcane.
