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| Pak taking undue advantage of Indus Water Treaty | | |
It is either Kashmir issue for Pakistan one day or it is water the other day.Invariably it is both Kashmir and water for Islamabad.In fact Pakistan has got an opportunity for raising both water and Kashmir issues because of the fact that these issues had been mishandled by Delhi..As far as water is concerned Islamabad has been taking undue advantage of the 1960 Indus Water Treaty. The tragedy has been that when a joint commitee was framed to resolve the water problem between India and Pakistan there was no member from Jammu and Kashmir in the committee.The result was that Pakistan got exclusive right over the Jehlum,the Indus and the Chenab,that emanate from Jammu and Kashmir.Against this India has exclusive right over three remaining rivers of Sutlej,Beas and Ravi.Had there been a member from Jammu and Kashmir there would not have been such a great injustice to the northern state.If Pakistan has been raking up the kashmir issue it is the result of the
blunder Delhi committed by taking the 1947 Tribal invasion on Kashmir to the UN Security Council.Nehru had firm belief that the Security Council will support India's case.Instead its resolution providing for right of self-determination to the people of the state compounded the problem.For over 35 years Pakistan had not botherered to talk much about water.Kashmir continued to be the main issue before Islamabad.Howver,during the last 20 years Pakistan has been consistent in raking up the alleged Indus Water Treaty violations.Whenever India takes up in hand any power project to be built on either the Jehlum,or the Indus or the Chenab Islamabad is quick to raise one objection or the other.It threw spanners when India or the Jammu and Kashmir Government started constructing Lower Jehlum or Upper Sind or Dhul Hasti,or Salal or Baglihar hydel projects.In case of the Baglihar power project it knocked the doors of the World Bank which has the power,under the
Treaty,to arbitrate in case of any dispute.The Bank appointed a Swiss engineer Richard Laffite as an arbitrator who held detailed discussions with the Indian and Pakistani experts.He gave the award which simply recommended slight alteration in the design.Of late Islamabad has threatened to move the World Bank as it has found the 330 MW Kishenganga power project,under construction,in north Kashmir violating the Indus Water Treaty.It is because of the periodic objections raised by Islamabad that he power project,on which work was initially started in 1994,could not be completed so far.In 2006 India reviewed the design of the plant and modified it to the extent that the project has been converted from a storage project to a run-of-river plant.This has been done to remove fears of Islamabad that the storage project could cause a deluge in Pakistan. During the last several years the members of the Water Commission of India and Pakistan have had a
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of meetings and Delhi has been removing all the unfounded fears and objections in its reply to letters from Pakistan Water Commission but despite that Islamabad enjoys creating hurdles in the power generation plans.On a number of occasions experts in Pakistan have stated that India was not stealing water but the river discharge had affected the flow of water from the Chenab,the Indus and the Jehlum to Pakistan.There are apprehensions in Delhi that Islamabad was deliberately trying to play up the water issue under the umbrella of the Indus Water Treaty so that India came under pressure for resuming the stalled composite dialogue.It is intriguing,if not surprising, that Pakistan,shedding tears over the plight of Kashmiris is taking pleasure in forcing these very Kashmiris to suffer from electricity shortage.
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