Sindh to maximise water flows to Balochistan.

ISLAMABAD -- With acute water constraints continuing during the ongoing Kharif season despite heavy downpour this week, the country may be heading towards a drought-like situation in the coming Rabi season because of the lowest-ever water storage in the country's two major reservoirs - Tarbela and Mangla.

While the country's water regulator - the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) - feared a water crisis spilling over to the next season with greater food security consequences, a meeting of federal and provincial ministers on Tuesday assured Balochistan of more water flows from Sindh in four to five days.

They, however, expressed their inability to be of much help unless river flows upstream of Guddu and Sukkur barrages go higher than 200,000 and 150,000 cubic feet per second (cusecs) compared to 72,000 and 59,000 cusecs at present.

Sources said river flows in the Indus at Tarbela were better than those between June 1 and June 20 and comparable with previous years, but flows in Jhelum, Chenab and Kabul were still historically low, according to data available with Irsa for more than 100 years.

Likewise, storage in Tarbela and Mangla on June 21 was also the lowest ever, they said.

Overall, irrigation shortage had been running at 58 per cent this season. It dropped to about 28pc in the recent couple of days but not of the scale that allows Irsa to return to normal irrigation allocation to the provinces because of no shortage.

The rains positively impacted fields but not river flows or the catchment areas of dams. Officials said most of the heavy rains reported in the country's plains and Balochistan and those in areas like Koh-i-Sulaiman in Balochistan, Karachi and Lahore were not helpful for irrigation in the canal command areas.

Unfortunately, though, the rains have come with a surprise snowfall as well in the catchments of both Mangla and Tarbela dams and a drop in temperatures has negatively impacted snow melting.

'This snowfall reported in areas at higher elevations of Chitral, Skardu and Babusar Pass at this time of the year (mid-June) is unprecedented. Temperatures...