26 January 2004	Monday	03 Zilhaj 1424

ISLAMABAD, Jan 25: The future of the technical committee on water issues hangs in the balance as its Chairman A.N.G. Abbasi and the federal government have failed to resolve their differences over terms of reference (TORs) of the committee, Dawn has learnt on authority.

Sources said after staying in the capital for a couple of days, Mr Abbasi had returned to Karachi as a disappointed man and it was expected that he would announce his decision to quit the committee within the next few days.

The sources said Mr Abbasi had, however, been advised by his friends not to resign on his own and let the government take the blame for not activating the committee.

Mr Abbasi held informal meetings with Federal Minister for Water and Power Aftab Sherpao and other authorities in Islamabad last week. Mr Abbasi had written to the federal government that the draft term of references of the committee finalized in consultations with former Wapda chairman Zulfiqar Ali Khan were not notified by the Centre and he would not start working unless those common points were included in the TORs.

After meeting the president and the water and power minister in the second week of December, Mr Abbasi was optimistic that the assurances about issuance of revised TORs would be fulfilled. However, no progress in this regard had been made since then, said a source who met Mr Abbasi.

The sources said Mr Abbasi had already given up the demand for grant of minister's status to the chairman of the committee. But he was upset that the committee had not been given enough powers to hold deliberations on water issues in detail.

He was insisting that the committee should be empowered through the TORs to assess whether or not there was enough availability of water to construct a new big reservoir at all. This was, however, not heeded to by the government.

The federal government, said the sources, was of the view that since the parliamentary committee on water resources had already taken a decision to conduct two studies on water requirement downstream Kotri and a study on environmental impact throughout the country, there was no need for the technical committee to deliberate upon the issue.

Mr Abbasi had also called for reviewing the 1991 water accord and its implementation, besides the technical aspects of the water requirement downstream Kotri. He was not available at his Karachi residence for comments.

President Gen Pervez Musharraf had announced the constitution of two - parliamentary and technical - committees on water resources in last August for evolving a consensus on the construction of big reservoirs. The parliamentary committee has so far held four meetings but the technical committee could not hold even one.

Meanwhile, the parliamentary committee on water resources led by senator Nisar Memon would hold its next meeting in Quetta on Jan 27-28, followed by another meeting in Karachi in the first week of February.