The other members of the committee included additional chief secretaries of the four provinces, commissioner Indus water, member water Wapda and a director general of the ministry of foreign affairs.
The sources said that the committee has prepared its initial report and submitted it to the government of Pakistan for its consideration and further action. However the committee desired to visit Afghanistan for comprehensive survey of the Kabul River.
According to the sources, Pakistan has also offered Afghanistan, technical and financial help to prepare a feasibility report about its available water resources for irrigation and hydel projects out of Pakistan's 100 million dollars aid for reconstruction and rehabilitation purposes in Afghanistan.
Water resources experts told Business Recorder that the 700 KM long River Kabul originates in the Hindukush range in Pakistan's territory of Chitral with the name of Chitral River. After flowing more than 100 Kms in Pakistan territory in Chitral district, it enters Afghanistan from Sanglakh Pass, 45 miles west of Kabul city.
Flowing north of the Khyber Pass it re-enters Pakistan in the Mohmand Agency with the name of Kabul River where Warsak dam and hydel power station were built about four decades ago. After passing through Peshawar, Charsadda, and Nowshera districts of NWFP it joins the mighty Indus system near Attock bridge.
The experts say that the river has annual flow of 17 million acre feet, out of which eight million acre feet are generated in Pakistan territory. Afghanistan uses 500,000 acre feet of water of Kabul River. However it is major source of irrigation and drinking water in NWFP.
The experts say that need of such an accord was long felt as distribution of river Kabul water could have become a cause of misunderstanding and tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan as Indian firms are already working on Salma dam near Heart and Kunduz Khanabad irrigation projects.
The experts say since river Kabul join River Indus downstream Tarbela Dam, the construction of Kalabagh Dam and other reservoirs on river Indus also depends on the assured availability of water from the Kabul river.