KARACHI, Feb 11: Speakers at a meeting of Shura Hamdard, Karachi chapter, urged the government not to surrender to India on Baghlihar Dam and start construction of Kalabagh Dam immediately after evolving a consensus of all provinces.
The meeting was held at a local hotel on Friday under the chairmanship of Justice (r) Haziqul Khairi, former Sindh Ombudsman. Dr Arshad Ali Beg, President of the Pakistan Environmental Assessment Association, speaking as the main speaker, said that it was India's desire for water and enhanced power generation capacity that prompted it to start construction of Baghlihar Dam on River Chanab in 1998 without the consent of the main stakeholder, Pakistan.
Under the Indus Water Treaty of 1960, restrictions had been imposed on the design and operation of hydroelectric plants, storage works and other river works such as the activity that India might intend to resort to, he said. Pakistan's main concern, he said, was that the Baghlihar Dam would provide India the in-built capacity to manipulate flow of water in breach of the Treaty.
One serious consequence of allowing India to go ahead with its plan would be the acute shortages and disturbed supply of water to Pakistan during the critical period of December-February, he said, adding that the flow of river Chanab would decline for at least one month by 7,000-8,000 cusecs at the crucial stage of Rabi season.
Pakistan is supposed to make use of Chanab and has exclusive right on its water under the Treaty. Pakistan has been expressing its strong reservations to the design of the Baghlihar Dam which would be higher than Tarbela Dam and the inspection report of the Baghlihar Dam project only confirmed Pakistan's apprehensions.
Dr Beg said India had also started constructing a dam on Neelam River which would have an adverse effect on the economy of Azad Kashmir. India was not only bent upon violating the Indus Waters Treaty to deprive Pakistan of Chanab and Jhelum waters, but was also working on blocking Pakistan's water supply from other sides by constructing a dam on Kabul River and stop its flow to the NWFP, he pointed out.
He criticized some Pakistanis for demanding abrogation of the Treaty and reminded them that under this accord, Pakistan was granted 150 MAF from the Indus Basin and the share was much higher than that of India.
In this context, he referred to an article posted on a website on December 6, 2004 and suggested that Indians had realized that by signing the Treaty, Jawaharlal Nehru had given away all family jewels to Pakistan which would get 80.4 per cent share from all rivers flowing from India as against the Indian share of 19.6 per cent.
By signing the Indus Water Treaty, Mr Nehru was seeking to buy peace, but soon after his return from Karachi after signing the treaty, he was reported to have admitted privately: "I had hoped this agreement would open the way for a settlement on other problems, but we are where we were," Dr Beg said.
He was of the view that Kalabagh Dam should be constructed along with a drainage system, but apprehensions of Sindh and NWFP would have to be removed first. In this regard, he identified major issues as salinity and fair distribution of water, adding that the issues required to be sorted out.
Dr Beg suggested that a canal should be built between Kalabagh and Sindh, and referred to the Indira Ghandhi canal between the Indian states of Punjab and Rajistan. Engineer Anwar Siddiqui pointed out that Baghlihar Dam was not a simple and run-of-the-river dam, but appeared to be 308 metre high having a storage capacity of 321, 000 acre feet water - 291,000 acre feet dead storage and 30,000 acre feet workable.
India was also constructing Kishen Ganga hydroelectric project on Neelam River, a tributary of Jhelum River, which would generate 450 MW electricity. India has made 17 interventions in the Indus Water Treaty so far and has chalked out a plan, costing Rs12,000 billion, for linking up all its rivers.
Sarshar Siddiqui, Dr Amjad Ali Jaffery, Prof Wiquar Ahmed Rizvi, Dr Nazar Kamrani, Mustafa Barelvi, Dr Naeem Qureshi, Gen (r) Ghulam Umar, M. A. Sabzwari, and Naqqash Kazmi also spoke. -PPI
