As border tension rises, another flashpoint is emerging in the standoff between India and Pakistan. Amid reports suggesting that New Delhi is planning to scrap the Indus Water Treaty in the wake of the terrorist attack in Uri, Islamabad has urged the World Bank to set up a Court of Arbitration to examine its objections to the Kishanganga hydro-electricity project in Jammu and Kashmir.
“They (Pakistan) have objected to the design of the project, saying it is not in line with the criteria laid down under the Indus Water Treaty,” an official source said on Monday. India, however, insisted that the project design was “well within the parameters” of the pact and requested the World Bank to appoint a neutral expert since it was a “technical matter”. The two sides presented their views on the project to the World Bank in Washington on September 27.
“We firmly believe that our design is well within the parameters laid down in the treaty. But they (Pakistan) think otherwise. They believe India’s design of the project will affect flow of the Kishanganga river to that country,” the source said. Pakistan, a lower riparian state, had raised objection in the past too. It had approached the International Court of Arbitration in 2010, saying the project will “adversely” affect the flow of the Kishanganga river (known as Neelum in Pakistan) as water would be diverted to the power plant in the Jhelum river basin.
Pakistan had also claimed that power generation capacity of its Neelum-Jhelum hydropower plant, located downstream of Kishanganga, would also be affected by the Indian project, work on which had begun in 2007. The matter was settled in India’s favour in 2013. Despite the fresh objections raised by Pakistan, India can continue its work, which is estimated to generate 360MW electricity, the sources said. “Unlike the popular perception, nowhere in the treaty it is written that work has to be stopped when the dispute resolution process is going on. The work can go on,” sources said, adding that the Washington meeting on the Kishanganga project was not linked to the recent LoC aggression.
