ISLAMABAD, Feb 20: The government has decided to further increase the number of seats for the National Assembly from 350 to 357, allocating three more seats to the NWFP, and one each to Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Islamabad.

Official sources said the decision was made at a meeting presided over by President Pervez Musharraf. The meeting was convened to resolve the dispute that had arisen after the Election Commission had rejected the Jan 16 allocation of seats by the National Reconstruction Bureau, increasing the number of seats from 237 to 350.

Among others, Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Irshad Hasan Khan, Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider, NRB chairman Tanvir Naqvi and Law Minister Shahida Jamil attended the meeting.

It was decided that Islamabad, which had been allocated one seat even though its population had increased manifold, would now have two NA seats. Similarly, Punjab will now have 148 NA seats, Sindh 60, NWFP 35, and Balochistan 15.

Reserved seats for women and technocrats will also be re-adjusted. The seats for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas would remain 12.

The government will soon promulgate a provisional constitutional order to give legal cover to the electoral reforms, that is the joint electorate system and abolition of special seats for minorities.

The meeting also considered the issue of Anti-Terrorism Courts and decided that the federal government would move the Supreme Court for vacation of the interim injunctions passed by the Lahore High Court last week. The LHC had stayed the setting up of the ATCs that had proposed army officers on the bench.