ISLAMABAD, 20 November 2004 — Pakistan is weighing all options, including legal and diplomatic, to stop India from violating the Indus water treaty through the construction of the 450MW Baglihar hydropower project on the Chenab River.
A high-level meeting, chaired by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and attended by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Water and Power Minister Liaquat Ali Jatoi in Rawalpindi, discussed the issue yesterday.
The meeting decided that differences with India over the Baglihar project should be resolved through negotiations between the two sides or third-party mediation. Pakistan and India have held a series of bilateral negotiations to resolve the issue, but there has been no breakthrough on the matter.
Senior officials of the Water Ministry said the government would use all options to safeguard the interests of the country. “At the moment we cannot divulge any details of Pakistan’s next move, but we can say that we are considering using all possible options to stop India from violating the Indus Basin Water Treaty, which gave Pakistan an exclusive right to use the Chenab water resources,” a senior official said.
The dam currently under construction on the Chenab is to generate 450 megawatt of electricity for India, but Pakistan in the process will lose 7,000 to 8,000 cusecs of water a day that will badly affect its winter harvest.
India has maintained that the project is only meant for power generation and no canal is being dug out to take water from the dam for irrigation, and the dammed water would be released to Pakistan after its utilization for power generation.
The water-sharing treaty gives both countries the third-party option in case of a deadlock over any issue. Article IX of the treaty provides for settling disputes through neutral experts or arbitration if the two states fail to resolve any dispute between themselves.
Last month, the Foreign Ministry informed the government that chances of a bilateral solution to the dispute were slim as India was continuing the construction work despite Pakistan’s protests and that New Delhi’s assurances were just a ploy to gain time to complete the project.
An inter-ministerial meeting on Oct. 21 requested Musharraf to use all available options to stop the construction of the dam.
Pakistan currently has two options: Either to discuss the dam construction with India again or seek international arbitration to protect its rights. Pakistan has serious reservations on the dam construction and its design, which would give India control of the river’s waters in breach of the bilateral treaty.
