HYDERABAD, Aug 10: A three-member team visited Kotri Barrage on Tuesday to examine faults in the telemetry system at the barrage. The chairman of the prime minister’s inspection team, Maj-Gen (rtd) Farooque Ahmed, headed the team.

Other members included Wapda’s chief engineer of the telemetry system, Javed Iqbal Bhatti, and Chairman Indus River System Authority, Aman Gul Khattak.

Media representatives were not invited by officials of the irrigation department to cover proceedings of the visit.

Kotri Barrage Chief Engineer Manzoor Sheikh briefed members of the team on different readings of availability of water in canals and the barrage which had been noted by officials over the past several months.

Officials had confirmed it to media during several press briefings that the system was not working properly and irrigation officials felt constrained not to believe readings regarding discharge and availability of water at the barrage.

The irrigation officials believed on their own manual system of noting different readings related to water availability at the barrage and its four off-taking canals.

The team members were informed that censors installed at gates of barrages were not showing actual and correct results.

They were told that the system’s backup batteries were also not working in absence of electricity though these batteries were supposed to provide uninterrupted power for eight hours.

But in case of power outage they got discharged after two hours.

The team examined the system in detail and had a briefing by officials of the irrigation department.

Sources in the irrigation department said the team was expected to submit its findings in three days to President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

The irrigation officials told the team that the water level was not correctly shown by the system.

Wapda official Iqbal Bhatti told a group of newsmen that the purpose of the visit was to look into the issue purely from technical point of view and it did not have nay political meaning or any connection with dams for water storage.

The official said the team visited Guddu and Sukkur barrages for the same purpose to prepare a detailed report to be submitted in three days.

The chief engineer of the Kotri barrage told the team members that if the system was not corrected then it would lead to more difficulties.

He said when poisonous water from the Manchhar Lake was released into the Indus River to reduce its level, irrigation officials refused to quote figures obtained from the telemetry system and relied on figures obtained from the department’s manual system.