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Punjab writes letter to Centre, Irsa against discrimination

Posted on: Fri July 02, 2010

ISLAMABAD: Amid increasing tension with the Indus River System Authority (Irsa), the Punjab government has written a letter to the federal government and water regulator seeking fairplay in water distribution. Irsa has come out to punish the Punjab as it is right now providing the indented water supply to all the provinces, except the Punjab, the letter said.

The water regulator is providing indented supply of 190,000 cusecs water per day to Sindh with special 30 percent water loss against the 20 percent loss approved by the Irsa advisory. It is also providing the indented supply to Balochistan of 13,000 cusecs per day and 3,000 cusecs to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

However, the Punjab is being negated the indented supply of 161,000 cusecs and presently it only gets 143,000 cusecs of water. The Punjab has sought the Centre s intervention over this alarming development.

 This is all being done with the Punjab just because of the political influence of Kamal Majidullah, Adviser to Prime Minister on Water, who is also the blue eyed personality of President Zardari on Irsa where Sindh has 40 percent representation, said a official of Punjab Irrigation and Power Department.

He claimed that Irsa Chairman Aman Gul Khattak resigned because of the pressure from Kamal Majidullah for not opening the CJ Link Canal. MH Siddique, Adviser to Punjab government, said the Sindh dominated Irsa has played an ugly role by not allowing to store water in Mangla by 80 percent by June 30. The water level should have been at 1,185 feet in Mangla which is right now 20 feet below the target. It means its filling is in jeopardy and in Rabi season there will be no water in the dam having adverse impact on wheat sowing in northern and central Punjab, he said.

Due to the non-availability of water in Mangla during the Rabi season, 1,300,000 acres of land wherein wheat is sown in northern and central part of the Punjab, will be adversely affected. Punjab will have shortage of 4 million tonnes of wheat worth over Rs100 billion. He said with no water supply from the CJ Link Canal, the irrigation of 3,000,000 acres of land of Jhang, Lodhran, Vehari and Bahawalpur will be affected.

Courtesy : The News