Only drinking water available amid unprecedented shortage – Pakistan

• Irrigation experts unable to plan water supplies for whole season in view of uncertainty
• Irsa advisory committee to review situation again in May

ISLAMABAD: With Kharif season starting in a few days, fears of an unprecedented water shortage are making it difficult for irrigation experts to plan water supplies for the entire season.

“There is no water in dams, river flows have plunged and fewer snow deposits on mountains are not promising improved flows,” an official told Dawn.

This will have very serious repercussions for crop output, he said. As a consequence, a meeting of the Advisory Committee of the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) decided on Wednesday to make only “drinking supplies” for one month, April, and then review the situation.

This is a very rare event that water regulator has started water discharge parameters on a monthly basis, although past precedents are there for water allocations in three parts during a season.

The meeting noted that because of no storage in any of the three storages, water discharges at rim-stations stood at 51pc shortfall and went beyond 60pc while reaching provincial canal heads.

“The Irsa Advisory Committee (IAC) duly accounting the unclear climatical parameters and keeping in view the summer 2025 weather outlook presented by Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), approved the water availability only for the month of April 25 with 43pc system shortfall,” said an official statement, adding that the water situation would again be reviewed in the first week of May.

The IAC meeting, which was presided over by Irsa chairman and member from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Sahibzada Mohammad Shabbir, was held to approve the Kharif anticipated water availability criteria from April 1 to Sept 30. All Irsa members, chief engineering adviser, provincial irrigation secretaries and senior officials attended the meeting.

The meeting reviewed the Rabi 2024-25 (Oct-Mar) system operation and showed satisfaction over the overall seasonal close at 18pc shortages till March 20 against the anticipated shortages of 16pc.

The PMD highlighted that below normal rain and above normal temperatures especially across northern and southern tips of the country were forecasted by local and global climate models for the months of April, May and June, the official statement pointed out, adding that PMD also reported winter snowfall in the catchments of Indus and Jhelum was recorded as 26.8 inches against the normal of 49.7 inches — i.e. 31pc less and inflows into the rim-station rivers would also be less than normal.

Both Sindh and Punjab agreed to have water allocations only for the month of April to take advantage of its lead demand and then review the situation again. However, Sindh registered its objection to the water distribution under the controversial 3-tier water distribution formula and demanded that water shares should be worked out on para-2 of the Water Accord. In that case, water shortage was estimated to go beyond 55pc for April.

The Kharif cropping season starts in April and lasts until September. Rice, sugarcane, cotton, maize, and mash are some of the key crops of the season.

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2025