NEW DELHI, 8 January 2005 — New Delhi and Islamabad failed to reach any agreement on Baglihar hydropower dam on the Chenab River, which flows from Indian Kashmir into Pakistan.
As the “final attempt to resolve the issue bilaterally had not ended in a success,” Pakistan will go for appointment of neutral experts to resolve the Baglihar project issue as talks with India to resolve the dispute has failed, Pakistan’s Secretary for Water and Power, Ashfaq Mahmoud said yesterday. He led the Pakistan delegation for talks on the contentious issue.
The 12-member Indian team was led by Secretary (Water Resources) V.K. Duggal. “We have waited for five years and done everything to resolve it bilaterally but it has not resulted in success. So the next step is obvious as provided by the Indus Water Treaty... Go for appointment of neutral experts,” Mahmoud said
The talks, initially scheduled for two days Tuesday and Wednesday, were extended by a day but without any success. During the talks, the two sides held “focused” discussions on six technical areas identified on the first day of the talks on January four.
The six technical areas under discussion included the poundage level, the gated spillway and the level of intake tunnels.
“Improvements” in project’s design figured in the discussions, sources said. Pakistan has reservations and objections about the design of the 450-mw project and its specifications of the Treaty. India does not agree with Pakistan stand that the project violates the Indus Water Treaty.
Failure of India and Pakistan to reach an agreement on the contentious issue, however, is least likely to upset the composite dialogue process under way for normalization of the two countries’ ties.
The week has also been witness to one of the largest ever delegation of Pakistani journalists arriving in India for six days, with two devoted to a media conference in Chandigarh and four to discovering India. With the visitors and hosts bowled over by each other’s warmth, failure of secretary-level formal talks can hardly be expected to puncture the ongoing dialogue process devoted to establishing peace between the two nuclear powers.
The dispute centers around India’s plans to construct a dam over the Chenab in Indian-controlled Kashmir’s Jammu region. The hydroelectric Baglihar dam is being built in two 450-megawatt phases. Pakistan says the dam violates the 1960 Indus Water Treaty on water sharing, one of the nuclear rivals’ most enduring agreements that has survived two wars.
Islamabad fears the dam could interfere with the flow of water from the Chenab and deprive it of vital irrigation in Pakistan’s wheat-growing Punjab province. New Delhi says the fears are groundless.
The World Bank-negotiated Indus treaty bars India from interfering with the flow of the three rivers feeding Pakistan — Indus, Chenab and Jhelum — but allows it to generate electricity from them.
The first phase of the Baglihar Dam was due to be completed in 2004 but has been delayed by the dispute.
The two South Asian nuclear rivals are currently engaged in a “composite dialogue” peace process, discussing a host of other bilateral disputes including the core problem of Kashmir.
Mahmoud said India had proposed construction of the dam in 1992 and began building in 2000 even though Pakistan had not approved the design as required by the Indus Water Treaty.
“India started the project unilaterally ... in contravention of the treaty,” he said, adding that Islamabad had tried its best to resolve it through bilateral talks.
“The Indian side has shown no flexibility ... in fact, no willingness to confirm the design according to the treaty.”
Under the treaty, India has rights over the waters of the Ravi, Sutlej and Beas Rivers while Pakistan has rights over the waters of the Indus, the Chenab and the Jhelum. All the rivers flow from India to Pakistan.
