SINDH is not able to meet the water needs of its tail-end growers during early kharif sowing, writes Muhammad Hussain Khan in his report `Water shortage at canal tail-end s` (Dawn Business and Finance, May 18). The reporter goes on to add that though the Nara canal, which goes up to Mithi in Thar, got 12,850 cusecs of water against its quota of 12,300 cusecs, the water still did not reach the growers at the tail-end.
The Ran distributary is 22 miles long while water is received by its upper six kilometres only. He blames it on outdated infrastructure and mismanaged internal distribution. Some interesting facts are given below: The combined capacity of Tarbela dam and the increased height of the Mangla dam is about 14 million acre feet (MAF). The losses through canals, distributaries and minors into underground poor quality/brackish water are 11.5 MAF. The loss of waterthrough water courses into underground poor quality/brackish water is 12.8 MAF. The total comes to 24 MAF. If we line all of our canals, distributaries and water courses with PVC geomembrane, we stand to retrieve 24 MAF of water which gets lost.
This is 71pc more than the combined capacity of water in Tarbela and Mangla dams. Most of the underground water in Khyber Pakhtunl(hwa and Punjab is fresh, which can be pumped and reused while it is not so in Sindh and Balochistan. Lining or piping of the water courses can save us 12.8 MAF. which is almost equal to the combined storage of Tarbela and Mangla.
The otheroptionis to use plasticpipesin place of water courses. Piping of water courses is being done in Turkey and India with great results.
