ISFAHAN The deputy governor general of Isfahan Province said that given the rate of water consumption in the province water reserves of Zayandeh-Roud Dam will be depleted within two months.

Speaking at the provincial administrative meeting Abdolhossein Seifollahi said that the dam has a reserve capacity of 456 million cubic meters of water, adding that in return for the 35 cubic meters consumption per second only 25 cubic meters of water flows into the reservoir.

He said presently social tensions are being notice within the province due to the shortage of water which is an alarming sign with regard to water consumption both for drinking and for industrial purposes.

Furthermore, he added, shortage of water for the oil refinery and the power plant in Isfahan will cause power cut and scarcity of fuel in the province.

Also speaking at the meeting, Governor General of Isfahan Ja'far Mousavi said that officials of the provincial Water and Sewerage Department should provide provincial cities with drinking water through every possible means.

Stressing that drinking water crisis is by no means acceptable, the governor general said people of Isfahan should not be sacrificed in such a crisis.

He said water problem in the province can be solved through implementation of two development projects that are facing a budget deficit of Rls.70 billion.

He said managers in the industry sectors should be encouraged to meet the financial demands.

Managing Director of Water and Sewerage Company of Tehran Province Sattar Mahmoudi said recently that only 23 subterranean canals out of the existing number of 286 in Tehran could be exploited for this purpose, adding that operations would be launched this year despite heavy costs.

Water rationing has started in several provinces and cities in the country that are in their third consecutive year of suffering from widespread drought.

The level of water reservoirs supplying water to the capital has sharply dropped by 200 million cubic meters in the current Iranian calendar year, started March 21.

According to the officials measures have been taken as of June 22 to fine citizens who consume more than 20 cubic meters (20,000 liters) of water per month.

The total capacity of water reservoirs at Karaj, Lar and Latian dams is 99 million cubic meters and water consumption in Tehran is now some 2.6 million cubic meters of which about 1.6 is maintained by dams and the remaining by subterranean reserves.

Therefore, water reservoirs of Karaj, Lar and Latian dams can meet water demands of Tehran for less than two months whereas the dams should have reserves for at least five to six months.

A London-based company announced recently that Kuwait and Iran have agreed to build a two-billion-dollar pipeline that will transfer fresh water from northern Iran to Kuwait.

Multinational group Gulf Utilities said the Kuwaiti cabinet had finally approved the deal after more than a year of talks on the pipeline, which would ship water from the Karkheh Dam in northern Iran to Kuwait some 650 kilometers (400 miles) to the south.

The deal could serve as a model for other water pipeline projects in a region where water plays an often critical geostrategic role, a spokesman for Gulf Utilities said.

Gulf Utilities, a British-led company which has Iranian and Kuwaiti stockholders, said that the Kuwaiti cabinet had formally approved the proposals, and were setting up bodies to work on the project and would soon dispatch officials to Tehran to finalize the deal.

Meanwhile, the energy ministry has played down concerns among the Iranians over water export to Kuwait.

"The people must not be concerned over the issue of pumping water. even though such a project is agreed to be implemented it would need at least five years to come on stream," the Persian daily *** Aftab-e Yazd **** quoted Deputy Energy Minister Rasoul Zargar as saying.

"The issue of water export to the Persian Gulf littoral states is only a plan that may be taken into account," he told the daily.

Asked by the daily to comment on the presence of the British-led consortium in Iran for talks on the project, Zargar said, "The consortium is comprised of the British and Kuwait private sectors and we have thus far had no talks with them."