ISLAMABAD: The Indus River System Authority (IRSA) has decided to close down canals for annual maintenance and de-silting between December 26, 2017 and January 31, 2018 during Rabi 2017-18.
Official sources told APP here, under its water discharge plan for the Dec 26-Jan 31 period, the Authority would release 10,000-12,000 cusecs of water from Tarbela dam and 8,000 cusecs from Mangla dam to meet the drinking water requirements.
Under the plan, the canals from both Trimmu and Trimmu Sidhnai Link would remain closed between Jan 10 and Jan 27. The SMB canal and Didhnai Canal would remain closed from Jan 11 to Jan 28 and the Lower Pakpattan canal from Jan 12 to Jan 29. The canals from Panjnad would be closed between Jan 5 and Jan 22 and from Taunsa between Dec 31 and Jan 17. The Kotri barrage would remain closed from Dec 25 to Jan 10 and Sukkur barrage between Jan 6 and Jan 20.
The Lower Jhelum canal and the Rasul-Qadirabad and Qadirabad-Balloki canals would be kept closed from Dec 26 to Jan 12 while Lower Bari Doab and Balloki-Sulemanki link canal would remain closed from Dec 29 to Jan 15.
Similarly, the Upper Pakpattan and Eastern Sadiqia canals would be kept closed between Dec 30 and Jan 16.
Meanwhile, IRSA Thursday released 49,000 cusecs water from various rim stations with inflow of 35,500 cusecs.
According to the data released by IRSA, water level in the Indus River at Tarbela Dam was 1435.58 feet, which was 55.58 feet higher than its dead level of 1,380 feet. Water inflow in the dam was recorded as 18,300 cusecs and outflow as 18,000 cusecs.
The water level in the Jhelum River at Mangla Dam was 1103.90 feet, which was 65.90 feet higher than its dead level of 1,040 feet whereas the inflow and outflow of water was recorded as 4,600 cusecs and 18,400 cusecs respectively.
The release of water at Kalabagh, Taunsa and Sukkur was recorded as 34,500, 28,400 and 1,100 cusecs respectively.
Similarly from the Kabul River, 6,200 cusecs of water was released at Nowshera and 2,000 cusecs from the Chenab River at Marala.
