M RAFIQUE GORAYA

LAHORE: There has been an improvement in the water inflows in the four live rivers with increase in temperature in the upper regions of the country during past couple of days; though the Indus River System Authority (IRSA) had forecast 40 percent water shortage owing to 11 percent decline in flows for sowing of Kharif cash crops including cotton, rice, sugarcane vegetables, fodder for livestock.

Punjab Irrigation engineers told Business Recorder here on Monday that running water in the rivers has risen to the level of 1,27,223 cusecs (Indus at Tarbela 33,800 cusecs, Jhelum at Mangla 41,700 cusecs, Kabul at Nowshera 31,000 and river Chenab at Marala headworks 20,734 cusecs). Of these inflows, IRSA is releasing about 100,000 cusecs of water in the sprawling irrigation network from Kalabagh downstream to Kotri barrage in Sindh province. It is retaining 27,000 cusecs water in the Tarbela and Mangla dams.

They said that the irrigation department is diverting maximum quantities of water drawn from Indus and Mangla zones in accordance with its share of water towards the cotton growing areas; as districts of central and northern Punjab do not need irrigation water because farmers are still engaged in the harvesting of the Rabi crops including wheat, grams, oil-seeds, sugarcane etc as their full maturity is complete. Meanwhile the Met Office has said that mainly dry weather is expected in most parts, while hot in central and southern parts of the country. Maximum highest temperature was recorded at Shaheed Benazirabad 44°C, Chhor, Mithi, Padidan, Dadu 42, Hyderabad 41, Karachi 40, Multan 38, Lahore, Faisalabad 37 and Peshawar 35.