HARIPUR: General Manager Tarbela Dam Mohammad Azam Joya has said the water level in the reservoir has been stagnant at its dead level of 1,392 feet for last two weeks, reducing irrigation water supply to the provinces.

This he said while briefing members of the Indus River System Authority during their visit to the reservoir on Friday evening.

“The water is being discharged to provinces in line with the amount of inflow in the reservoir, which certainly causes reduction in the supply to provinces,” he said, adding the dam had been at dead level for last about a fortnight.

The IRSA members, including Amjad Saeed Mughal from Punjab, Abdul Hameed Mengal from Balochistan, Eng Zahid Abid from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and director operations IRSA Mohammad Khuld Rana took a round of the site and intakes of the fourth and fifth extension projects and examined the work progress.

The general manager Tarbela briefed the IRSA members on the progress of work on the fifth extension project and told them that three units with a capacity of 510MW each were being installed, thus adding 1,530MW of electricity to the national grid.

It may be added that the Tarbela reservoir has a 1,550 feet of storage at its crest level, with its 17 units generating a total of 4,888MW electricity.

However, according to the statistics by Friday evening, the electricity generation has dropped to only 248MW as its only six units are operational due to reduced water inflow.

The inflow of water was 15,900 cusecs by Friday evening.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2022