As the running water in the Indus River has been falling since 1st September up country, the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) on Sunday released 33,000 cusecs additional water from the Tarbela dam to meet hydel power generation and crop irrigation needs of the four provinces.
Water and Power Develop-ment Authority (Wapda) engineers told Business Recorder that water flow in the mighty Indus has dropped to 1, 17,000 cusecs from about 2,00,000 cusecs earlier this month. Irsa has increased the outflow to 1, 50,000 cusecs to maintain the hydel power generation quantum to more than 3,400MW from 50 miles long Tarbela lake.
They said that Irsa has also stopped further filling of Mangla dam and released all the 20,000 cusecs run of the river Jhelum water to generate cheap hydel power to meet growing electricity needs of the country.
According to 8th September rivers flows and reservoirs level report of Wapda; 21,600 cusecs water is flowing in the river Kabul at Nowshera; 20,000 cusecs in the river Jhelum at Mangla and 43,800 cusecs in the river Chenab at Marala. Meanwhile, Flood Forecasting Division has said that River Indus at Guddu (flow 2, 79,400 cusecs) and Kotri (flow 3, 15,000 cusecs) is in low flood level.
Weather forecast for today:
Scattered thundershower with isolated moderate falls is expected over Mohmand, Bajour, Khyber, Kurrum Agencies, Peshawar, Kohat, Mardan, Malakand, Hazara, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala divisions, Islamabad and Kashmir. Isolated thundershower is likely to occur over Lahore, Sargodha, Faisalabad, Bannu and D I Khan divisions. Thundershower may occur at a few places of coastal areas of Sindh.
Further outlook for next 48 hours:
Rain-thundershower is expected at isolated places of Kashmir, Malakand, Hazara, Peshawar, Kohat, Islamabad/Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Lahore and Sargodha divisions. Hot and humid weather expected elsewhere in the country.
Weather past 24 hrs:
Weather remained hot and humid in most parts of the country. However, rain-thundershower occurred at isolated places of Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Malakand, Hazara divisions and Kashmir.
Rainfall past 24 hrs:
Kotnaina-71, Shakargarh- 45, Kotli-33, Lower Dir-15, Palandri- 14, Islamabad(Saidpur-12 and Zeropoint- Trace), Talhatta- 09, Shinkiari- 08, Lahore(Shahi Qilla- 07, Misri Shah-06, Shahdara-05 and City- Trace), Oghi-06, Muzaffarabad-05, Kakul-04, Domel-03, Gujrat-02, Murree and Mandibahauddin-01(each), Jhelum and Rawalakot-Trace(each).
