ISLAMABAD, June 2: The Indus River System Authority (Irsa) on Wednesday constituted a special committee led by chief engineering advisor of the federal government to probe into water shortage issue.

It was also established at the meeting that Sindh has so far faced about 14 per cent higher shortage than Punjab although both were supposed to share the water shortage on an equal basis. The Irsa had projected a 13 per cent shortage for the period between April 20 to June 10.

The meeting, presided over by Irsa chairman Rahim Khan Zarkun, also decided to convene an urgent meeting of the advisory committee of Irsa to review the water availability situation for the remaining Kharif season.

The Irsa chairman said the losses in Sindh and Punjab had touched 51 per cent and 32 per cent, respectively, and he had constituted the committee to look into the problem in detail.

The committee will be consisted of Wapda chief engineer and Irsa chief engineer and it will visit Indus barrages - Chashma downwards along the river terrain and submit a report within a fortnight.

The committee will review the rating curves and the mechanism of joint observation by the representatives of provinces and Wapda, stationed at these barrages. Irsa Secretary Sohail Ali Khan confirmed that overall shortage was higher than forecast by the Irsa and an emergency meeting of the advisory committee would be convened in a couple of days.

He declined to give any figure on the shortage till the advisory committee meeting but said the situation was much different than anticipated at the start of the season. He said the storage situation in dams was also far lower than targeted by Irsa because of slow snow melting.

He said the Tarbela dam continued to be at 1365.9 feet, about four feet lower than its dead level of 1369. The Mangla dam should have been at 1140 feet at this time but in fact it was at around 1122 feet.

When asked whether or not the Irsa made a commitment to compensate Sindh for 1.2 MAF shortage higher than its apportioned share, he declined to comment. He said the situation would be made public once advisory committee held its urgent meeting.

He confirmed that overall water shortage as of May 31 stood at 34 per cent. So far Sindh, he said, had faced 44 per cent shortage and Punjab 30 per cent. Sindh Irrigation Secretary Bashir Ahmad Dahar said Sindh got 1.2 MAF water less than its share agreed to by the Irsa at the start of the season.

He said the system losses had gone up to 51 per cent and Irsa had been asked to compensate the provinces against their shares and equalise shortage between Sindh and Punjab.

He said Irsa had agreed to compensate Sindh by providing it extra water in the remaining days. He said Sindh had no objection to the visit of the committee probing into the losses. Meanwhile, an official statement said the Irsa meeting had been convened to review the water situation during the ongoing critical phase of the Kharif 2004 season.

Irsa took note of the water account for the last six ten- dailies and it was observed that there existed some imbalance in the actual utilisation of provinces. It was decided that a conscientious effort should be made by Irsa for evenly utilisation of water as far as possible during the remaining season, the statement said.

It was also decided that Irsa would regularly review the actual utilisation accounts of the provinces on ten-dailies basis, take note of the actual losses involved, analyse indents furnished by provinces keeping in mind the overall water availability and issue five-dailies authorisation as laid down in the Irsa Act.