The annual river flows of our western rivers that are being stored has touched a low of 8 percent due to silting up of the dams, impacting adversely on the availability of water which is fast approaching the water-scarce level of 1000 cubic meters per capita, per annum, down from a high of 5000 cubic meters. On the other hand India has already attained over 30 percent storage capacity on the eastern rivers because of many dams it has built on these rivers. Not only has India increased its own capacity, it has also attained the capability of throttling our supplies whenever it wants to, also to dry up the BRB canal defence canal during any hostilities. If we dont increase our extremely low contingency reserves of 30 days, we will be leaving ourselves at the mercy of India. No country in the world blessed with rivers has less than 100 days contingency reserves. KHURSHID ANWER, Lahore, November 6.