04 October 2004	Monday	18 Shaban 1425

It has been more than a year that India and Pakistan have been having water talks at various levels but no formal agreement has yet been made and after every level of talks, both sides claim that they were very close to solution.

As a matter of fact these talks are being proved to be a mere source of pleasure trips for the delegates of both countries. The recent talks on the Wullar barrage, the first in six years, were part of the eight point composite dialogue process the two countries had initiated earlier this year.

Lately, the two countries were also engaged in talks on the Baglihar dam on Chenab river in occupied Kashmir. Till now, there have been almost ten rounds of talks on each of these issues without any tangible results.

India and Pakistan have been at loggerheads over the above two issues, with Islamabad repeatedly stating these two projects are in violation of the Indus Waters Treaty. Pakistan had also threatened that it will exercise its right to seek international arbitration should the matter remain unresolved.

India started construction of the Wullar barrage on river Jehlum in occupied Kashmir, in 1985 but halted it two years later after objections raised by Pakistan. The Baglihar controversy, however, begun in 1999 when India came up with an idea of building a storage reservoir on river Chenab for its 900 MW power project.

It is worth mentioning here that India is going with these projects despite the fact that the World Bank-guaranteed Indus Water Treaty bars India from interfering with the flow of the three rivers feeding Pakistan - Indus,Chenab and Jehlum.

Signed on September 19, 1960, the Indus Water Treaty was brokered by the World Bank. Apart from the World Bank, the treaty also involves Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Britain and the U.S. These countries were part of collateral Indus Water Basin Development Fund Agreement.

India has been allowed some designated limited local use on the western rivers for which prior agreement from Pakistan is required. The Treaty also provides a mechanism for dispute resolution. A number of such disputes have been settled effectively but the Wullar barrage and Baglihar dam Project have so far remained unresolved.

The construction of Wullar barrage would affect the flow of the Jehlum river water into Pakistan. Whereas Baglihar, which is going to be completed by the end of this year, is likely to reduce water flows of Chenab river, at least 8000 cusecs a day, and completely disturb supplies for an uninterrupted period of 28 days during the critical period of December-February.

The Pakistan government's inability to get India to bend on the controversial construction of the Baglihar dam and Wullar barrage projects has come in for severe criticism not only by farming community but politicians of the ruling coalition as well.

At a time when the country itself is passing through critical water stressed period and the situation is demanding for increasing our water resources, the inability of the military-backed government to bar India from robbing Pakistan's water is a matter of grave concern for the whole nation.

In the absence of sufficient water storage capacity and insufficient rainfall this monsoon season the water shortage in the country is getting critical day by day and is already a major source of inter provincial disharmony.

If India is not bared from going ahead with the Wullar barrage and Baglihar project, a large area of Punjab which is being irrigated through Chenab and Jehlum rivers is likely to suffer badly. And when water will be transferred from Indus to either Chenab command or Jehlum through controversial Chashma-Jehlum link canal it would add fuel to already existing Sindh and Punjab water sharing conflict.

Seeing this serious implication of Wullar barrage and Baglihar dam on our agriculture-based economy and inter provincial harmony, it seems quite unjustified that why our government is leaning on this important issue?

The illogical answer what I understand is that due to changing geo-political situation of the region the government is preferring a purely political issue of Kashmir over a purely technical and social issue of water.

It has been reported in a section of our press that Pakistan is expected to give some unprecedented 'concessions' to India on the issue of Wullar barrage in clear departure to its earlier rigid stance.

It would be worth mentioning here that during the premiership of Mir zafarullah Khan Jamali Pakistan was all set to invoke world bank mediation for the long unsettled water Baglihar issue with India but unfortunately for reasons best known to out political masters, we pulled ourself back of any such move thus giving India full advantage of going smoothly with its plan.

The soft stance of Pakistan over this issue clearly reflects a change in Pakistans attitude which had served two notices to India, asking to remove its objections to the controversial project or appoint a neutral expert under the aegis of the World Bank for resolving the dispute.

For the time being, Pakistan appears to have put on the backburner its threat to take the dispute to the World Bank. Whether the post-Saarc meeting spirit has anything to do with it or not, India is happy with this leniency of Pakistan.

This leniency is evident from the fact that the joint statement issued on the conclusion of the meeting of 5-6 September between the two foreign ministers to review the status of composite dialogue does not include a single word about Wullar barrage.

The government needs to distinguish between a political (Kashmir) and social (water) issue and must not compromise over later to the former in any case. We have been shouting at India over Kashmir since our independence in 1947 and can go on shouting for all time to come but an early settlement of these water issues is essential to refrain India for taking such defying attempts to alter the water of our western rivers.