KARACHI, March 13: Sindh Province continues to face serious water shortage as there was no improvement in inflows of Indus River at Tarbela.

According to a spokesman of Irrigation and Power department, the Indus inflows at Tarbela on Thursdayy was only 19,700 cusecs as against 27900 cusecs on 8-3-2008. Similarly, the inflows in Kabul River have reduced to 12,900 cusecs from 16600 cusecs on 9-3-2008.

He pointed out that Tarbela storage has already exhausted as it attained minimum operating level of RL 1369 ft. This is very serious and alarming situation as the supplies to Sindh are now on the run of the river basis, he added.

According to spokesman water availability at Sindh Barrages is considerably short.

Today, he said, Sindh utilized about 17,551 cusecs against Accord Allocation of 37000 cusecs, hence facing about 53% shortages and position is likely to worsen further if current trend of inflows continues.

He said Irrigation and Power Department has resorted to rotational supplies to manage supplies to standing crop in the command of perennial canals.

The farmers were advised to utilize available water for saving standing wheat crop only and not to use it for sowing new crop until water availability improves.

Source: APP 2008

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