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189689
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 08:10
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https://www.oananews.org//node/189689
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WB arbitrators visit Kashmir power project over Indo-Pak row
Srinagar, India, June 20, IRNA - A high-level World Bank team, accompanying Indian and Pakistani authorities, has begun inspection of a major power project coming up in Kashmir that Islamabad says violates a landmark treaty between the two countries.
The visit is the first by the World Bank since it was called in to arbitrate the latest in a series of disputes between the sub-continental neighbors over India’s use of its share of the rivers of the Indus water system in Jammu and Kashmir.
Known as the Kishenganga Power Project after the north Kashmir river feeding it, the 330 megawatt hydel venture in the frontier district of Bandipur has sparked disquiet in Islamabad which says that it would turn an entire district of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir barren. Kishenganga, known as Neelum in Pakistani part of Kashmir, is a tributary of the River Jhelum.
A high-level contingent of 29 members, comprised of of International Court of Arbitration and water resource commissioners from India and Pakistan, inspected the project site at Kanzalwan in detail on the first day of their visit today, seeking clarifications from both sides on various aspects of their arguments.
The arbitrators reviewed the project design, and also visited the frontier town of Gurez in the same district for a firsthand inspection of the project dam whose parameters and capacity Pakistan has objected to.
Islamabad claims that designs of power projects in Kashmir enable India to control, and even block, river flow into its territory, expressing fears of parched periods alternating with heavy flooding in the future due to New Delhi’s upper hand.
It has also voiced objections to the planned diversion of the Kishenganaga Project’s waters to the Wullar Lake, the largest fresh water lake in Asia, saying that this would further deplete river discharge into the country.
As per Pakistan, India holds back water flow to the country at her will. Islamabad says that New Delhi leverages to strangulate agro-industrial life-line in the country. New Delhi’s political authorities in Kashmir, however, dismissed Islamabad’s fears as “out of the question,” saying that India would strictly abide by the agreement between the two countries specifying river water usage.
Signatories to what is known as the Indus Water Treaty, brokered by the World Bank in the early sixties, India and Pakistan have generally upheld the terms of the pact despite wars, but Islamabad has begun to voice serious objections over some power and navigation projects coming up in Jammu and Kashmir.
In 2010 Islamabad took the Kishenganga case to International Arbitration Court accusing India of gross violation of the Indus Water Treaty.
The court of arbitration route is taken when the issue does not pertain to a technicality and concerns the legal disputes over the interpretation of the Treaty itself.
Pakistan is learnt to have sought legal interpretation on two major parameters concerning the diversion of Kishenganga water for the power project.
First, it has sought the legal interpretation of India's obligations under the provisions of the Treaty that mandates India to let the water of the Western-flowing Indus Basin Rivers (Chenab, Jhelum and Indus) go to Pakistan and whether or not the Kishenganga project meets those obligations.
New Delhi maintains that it is within its rights, under the Treaty, to divert Kishenganga waters to the Bonar Madumati Nullah, another tributary of the Jhelum, which falls into the Wullar Lake before joining the Jhelum again.
Pakistan has objected to this, saying India's plan to divert water causes obstruction to the flow of Kishenganga.
As far as reports from India are concerned, the project is likely to be completed in February, 2014.
The state faces massive electricity shortage as it receives no compensation for its losses due to the Indus Water Treaty which divides the rivers of the Himalayan basin between India and Pakistan, and has to endure heavy and unaffordable expenditure to import the power generated here by India’s premier state-controlled hydel corporation virtually gratis.
New Delhi’s enforces monopoly and control of states water resources estimated to have an untapped generation potential of around 20,000 megawatts./end
The visit is the first by the World Bank since it was called in to arbitrate the latest in a series of disputes between the sub-continental neighbors over India’s use of its share of the rivers of the Indus water system in Jammu and Kashmir.
Known as the Kishenganga Power Project after the north Kashmir river feeding it, the 330 megawatt hydel venture in the frontier district of Bandipur has sparked disquiet in Islamabad which says that it would turn an entire district of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir barren. Kishenganga, known as Neelum in Pakistani part of Kashmir, is a tributary of the River Jhelum.
A high-level contingent of 29 members, comprised of of International Court of Arbitration and water resource commissioners from India and Pakistan, inspected the project site at Kanzalwan in detail on the first day of their visit today, seeking clarifications from both sides on various aspects of their arguments.
The arbitrators reviewed the project design, and also visited the frontier town of Gurez in the same district for a firsthand inspection of the project dam whose parameters and capacity Pakistan has objected to.
Islamabad claims that designs of power projects in Kashmir enable India to control, and even block, river flow into its territory, expressing fears of parched periods alternating with heavy flooding in the future due to New Delhi’s upper hand.
It has also voiced objections to the planned diversion of the Kishenganaga Project’s waters to the Wullar Lake, the largest fresh water lake in Asia, saying that this would further deplete river discharge into the country.
As per Pakistan, India holds back water flow to the country at her will. Islamabad says that New Delhi leverages to strangulate agro-industrial life-line in the country. New Delhi’s political authorities in Kashmir, however, dismissed Islamabad’s fears as “out of the question,” saying that India would strictly abide by the agreement between the two countries specifying river water usage.
Signatories to what is known as the Indus Water Treaty, brokered by the World Bank in the early sixties, India and Pakistan have generally upheld the terms of the pact despite wars, but Islamabad has begun to voice serious objections over some power and navigation projects coming up in Jammu and Kashmir.
In 2010 Islamabad took the Kishenganga case to International Arbitration Court accusing India of gross violation of the Indus Water Treaty.
The court of arbitration route is taken when the issue does not pertain to a technicality and concerns the legal disputes over the interpretation of the Treaty itself.
Pakistan is learnt to have sought legal interpretation on two major parameters concerning the diversion of Kishenganga water for the power project.
First, it has sought the legal interpretation of India's obligations under the provisions of the Treaty that mandates India to let the water of the Western-flowing Indus Basin Rivers (Chenab, Jhelum and Indus) go to Pakistan and whether or not the Kishenganga project meets those obligations.
New Delhi maintains that it is within its rights, under the Treaty, to divert Kishenganga waters to the Bonar Madumati Nullah, another tributary of the Jhelum, which falls into the Wullar Lake before joining the Jhelum again.
Pakistan has objected to this, saying India's plan to divert water causes obstruction to the flow of Kishenganga.
As far as reports from India are concerned, the project is likely to be completed in February, 2014.
The state faces massive electricity shortage as it receives no compensation for its losses due to the Indus Water Treaty which divides the rivers of the Himalayan basin between India and Pakistan, and has to endure heavy and unaffordable expenditure to import the power generated here by India’s premier state-controlled hydel corporation virtually gratis.
New Delhi’s enforces monopoly and control of states water resources estimated to have an untapped generation potential of around 20,000 megawatts./end
