TEHRAN Iran, suffering under a crippling drought for the third successive year, has rationed water in 30 cities, the Deputy Energy Minister Gholamreza Manouchehri said here Wednesday.

The rationing, he said, has been mostly applied in southern, eastern and central provinces of Sistan-Baluchestan, Isfahan, Fars, Bushehr, Kerman, Khorasan and Tehran.

Water has been rationed in 12 cities in Bushehr Province, as it has been so in 10 cities in Sistan-Baluchestan as well as all cities in desert areas in Kerman and Isfahan, he added.

Officials early this year predicted that 12 of Iran's 28 provinces are expected to be affected by the severe drought, including the capital Tehran which is starting to experience the first signs of water rationing for the first time.

A UN official recently said that Iran is worst hit by the drought in the region, adding its effects were far destructive than the previous years.

A UN report on Iran drought, the official said, indicated a "dark picture" of the prevailing drought in Iran, saying the country should start devising comprehensive plans to fight it.

Last year the drought which hit the country destroyed about three million tons of wheat and barley as well as a million heads of livestock, increasing Iran's dependency on food imports.

Reserves in three dams that provide 60 percent of Tehran's supply have sunk to dangerously low levels.

Poisonous snakes searching for water in an arid region in central Iran were reported recently to have sparked panic among the residents.

Police recently detained 44 in the central city of Isfahan who were behind violent demonstrations against the water shortage in the city which brought traffic into a standstill.

Police had to shoot into the air to disperse the crowd of demonstrators.

Meanwhile, more than Rls.110,000 billion has been invested in the water sector over the past four decades, said Deputy Energy Minister for Water Affairs Rasoul Zargar here Wednesday.

Zargar told a group of officials in charge of water that Rls. 90,000 billion out of the total investment in the sector has been made since the triumph of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

He predicted that Rls.50,000 billion will be invested in the water sector during the Third Five-Year Economic Development Plan (2000-2005). Meanwhile, director of the Marshland protection project Hossein Serajzadeh said here Wednesday that the country does not face water crisis, rather water management crisis because statistics available say per capita water consumption in Iran exceeds that in other countries.

Serajzadeh said per capita share of water in Iran is 2,160 cubic meters a year, while it stands at over 5,917 liters a day now.

He said big dams cause evaporation of large amount of water and lead to hydrologic imbalance at the bottom of dams. This, he added, jeopardize flora and fauna ecosystem in the region.

He proposed using small dams as much as possible.

Serajzadeh noted that high evaporation and unprincipled planning in water management have caused water crisis.