Pakistan to be water deficient country by 2012

Lahore, Dec 10: Pakistan will be a water deficient country by 2012 if the water storage capacity is not increased. At present, the storage capacity is only 13 per cent of the annual water flows from rivers.

This was revealed during a briefing to a delegation of the Pakistan Air Force War College in Karachi.

The delegation led by Air Vice Marshal Tubrez Asif, visited WAPDA House. WAPDA Member (Water) Muhammad Mushtaq and PEPCO MD Munawar B. Ahmed briefed the delegation about the water and electric power scenario of the country.

The delegation was briefed about the storage capacities of various countries, and informed that the US has developed a 497 per cent storage capacity from the annual flow from the River Colorado.

Likewise, Egypt possesses a 281 per cent storage capacity on the River Nile and India 35 per cent on Sutlej Beas Basin.

The delegation was apprised that the accumulative grow storage capacity of Tarbela, Mangla and Chashma reservoirs that originally used to be 18.37 million acre feet MAF has reduced to 13.22 MAF due to sedimentation, resulting in 28 per cent loss of capacity.

Hence, construction of more than one mega dam is inevitable to meet the growing demand of water as well as electric power in the country.

Dispelling the impression regarding constructions of large dams, Munawar said that at present China alone is building 95 major dams with a height of 200 feet or more, Turkey is constructing 51 large dams flowed by Iran with 48, Japan with 40 and India with 10 large dams.

Contrary to this only one such dam is being constructed in Pakistan while another one has recently been completed, members added.

Ahmed said PEPCO is striving hard to minimise the gap between consumption and generation of electricity.

He said a number of reforms are being introduced to make the power sector of Pakistan more efficient and customer friendly, The Nation reported.

ANI>