National Assembly Shares Water Situation In PakistanNational Assembly Shares Water Situation In Pakistan

National Assembly Shares Water Situation In Pakistan

National Assembly Shares Water Situation In Pakistan: Pakistan can store just 10% of the water flowing through the country’s rivers and the rest goes to waste, the minister for water resources shared in National Assembly session yesterday.

Detailing The Storage Capacity In The Country

  • Minister, Syed Javed Ali Shah said that reservoirs could store just 14 million acre-foot (MAF), amounting to just 10% of annual river flows.
  • IRSA’s advisory committee had anticipated a water shortage of 36 per cent for the Rabi Season (October 2017-March 2018).

Main Factors of Water Shortage

  •  Inaction regarding building new reservoirs,
  • reduction in storage capacity of existing ones because of sedimentation,
  • rapidity of climate change
  • and increase in population and water demand were cited as main factors affecting the water shortage in the country.
National Assembly Shares Water Situation In Pakistan
National Assembly Shares Water Situation In Pakistan

Domestic And Available Capacity

  • The domestic water storage capacity is at its lowest: The available water storage capacity in the three main reservoirs was just 0.018 MAF against last year’s storage at 0.506 MAF.
  • According to him, the country’s average storage capacity for the past five years was 1.421 MAF and for the past 10 years, it was 0.58 MAF.
National Assembly Shares Water Situation In Pakistan
National Assembly Shares Water Situation In Pakistan

26 projects under process to preserve water

The minister said that the country was currently building 26 projects for preserving water flows. The live storage capacity of these reservoirs would be 7.323277 MAF.

  • The federal government was sponsoring a number of water sector projects, executed by Wapda and provincial irrigation departments under PSDP.
  • Of these 26 projects, only two would be completed during current fiscal year, while 13 were expected to be finished in the next fiscal year.
  • Six water reservoir projects were expected to be completed by 2020.
  • The remainder reservoirs would be completed beyond 2020

Diamer-Basha Dam

  • Diamer-Basha dam, scheduled to be built on Indus River near Chilas, would have a storage capacity of up to 6.4 MAF. This project is likely to be built by 2025-26.
  • 31,695 acres of land had so far been acquired out of a total of 37,419 acres.
  • Construction of infrastructure was in progress while work on the main dam was yet to be started.
National Assembly Shares Water Situation In Pakistan
National Assembly Shares Water Situation In Pakistan

Earlier, members of the National Assembly offered Fateha for the departed souls of three children martyred in unprovoked Indian firing along the Working Boundary in Sialkot Sector. The House also offered Fateha for the departed soul of Pakistani student Sabika Sheikh who was killed in the Texas firing incident.

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