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| Baglihar holds overrun reputation intact | | Next commissioning deadline set out for April | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu | Oct 26
In sync with its bad precedence of overrunning the deadlines, the prestigious Baglihar hydro-electric project has reached nowhere near completion so as to turn functional on the slated deadline of December this year.
Even though on the occasion of Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad's visit to the project site a couple of months back, a batch of journalists was taken to Chanderkote where officials claimed that the project is on final stage but the deadline is all set to be run over once again.
It will now be commissioned in mid-April -- a delay of almost four more months for the project, which was to be commissioned in December 2004. The delay is because of some technical glitches, but we are now certain that this project will be commissioned in April 2008, it has been learnt.
According to an official the project is almost complete, but the delay has been caused by some last-minute technical problems. Details of the technical problems confronting the project, however, could not be learnt immediately.
Work on the Baglihar project, the first-ever hydroelectric project being undertaken by the state government, began in 1999. The National Hydroelectric Power Corporation Ltd has built all other mega hydroelectric plants in the state -- Uri, Salal and Dul Hasti.
Pakistan had raised objections against the design of the Baglihar project. It accused India of having kept the dam's height much above that permitted by the Indus Water Treaty. It took its objections to the World Bank that had brokered the 1960 Indus Water Treaty that grants rights to oversee the use of Chenab, Indus and Jhelum which flow through Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan, while India retains powers to use the waters of Ravi, Sutlej and Beas which flow through Punjab to Pakistan.
A neutral observer Raymond Laffte, however, ruled in favour of India in February this year and that had raised hopes that the project would be commissioned soon. Power Minister Rigzin Jora had declared that the Rs.30 billion project would be ready by the end of December but it has been delayed yet again. |
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