ISLAMABAD, 13 December 2021, (TON): A report presented by the Punjab government to Prime Minister Imran khan during a briefing in Islamabad a couple of days ago warns of an Indian dam project, claiming the Ravi Riverfront Urban Development Project is the only way to mitigate the looming droughts and the potential threat to the already depleting groundwater of Lahore and the surrounding areas.

In the the briefing, the Ravi Urban Development Authority (Ruda) Chief Executive Officer Imran Ali informed the premier that the Ravi project would transform of the river into a perennial fresh water body having enough capacity to pass extreme floods and save the provincial metropolitan facing an “existentialist threat”.

The officials while discussing the factors necessitating the Ravi project, said the construction of MR Link Canal served as a “bypass” for Lahore.

It says that in the wake of Indian Basin Treaty, India increased its water diversion capacity on its (then) existing infrastructure, reducing the flows to Pakistan.

The loss of groundwater in Lahore its surrounding was compensated through MR Link Canal to help replenish the aquifer and allowing the fishery to survive. This arrangement worked well till year 2000, but a significant drop in the Ravi River flow has been observed since completion of Thein Dam in India, in 2001.

Since then, the flow in Ravi River near Lahore has been limited to less than 20 percent of what it was before 2000. Currently, every winter season, when MR Link Canal is closed, the river flow gets reduced to less than 300 cusecs, which is even less than the design capacity of Lahore canal’s 400 cusecs.