ISLAMABAD, June 8: The technical report on construction of big dams has been further delayed as President General Pervez Musharraf has asked chairman of Technical Committee on Water Resources ANG Abbasi to finalize his report latest by August 30, 2005.

The government had earlier given him a deadline of April 30 to submit the report. Mr Abbasi tendered his resignation last month without finalizing the report. The president did not accept the resignation.

Besides extending the deadline, the president has also allowed Mr Abbasi to continue working as minister of state till December, a senior official at the ministry of water and power told Dawn.

The power ministry has issued a formal notification to this effect as per minutes of the May 25 meeting of the president with Mr Abbasi and Water and Power Minister Liaqat Ali Jatoi. The required additional budget has also been released to the TCWR chairman accordingly.

He said the president took these decisions based on a written application Mr Abbasi had earlier submitted to the prime minister and face-to-face discussions with the TCWR chairman.

The official said the report, to be finalised by Mr Abbasi, would be deliberated upon at the ministry of water and power. The members of the TCWR who had raised objections over the finalization of the report by Mr Abbasi without their involvement would also be involved in these deliberations.

Punjab’s member to the committee Chaudhry Mazhar and NWFP’s member Shamsul Mulk had expressed objections over the procedure of finalization of the report and had informed the government and the committee chairman that the report would not be acceptable to them.

President Musharraf had announced two committees - technical committee and parliamentary committee - in October 2003 to develop inter-provincial consensus and start construction of a big dam by end of 2004.