‘WB expert bases dam decision on technical points’
By Our Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Feb 11: The World Bank-appointed neutral expert for the Baglihar dam dispute between India and Pakistan has based his report solely on technical points, official sources told Dawn.
In the process, he rejects some of the points raised by both India and Pakistan. For instance, he rejects Islamabad’s demand that the spillway on the site should remain un-gated. Prof Raymond Lafitte, a Swiss expert who is expected to announce his report on Monday, also rejects several key elements of the original design India submitted to him.
In a draft report he showed to Indian and Pakistani experts in Washington in November last year, Mr Lafitte urged India to re-design the dam, reduce its height and construct a parapet around it. He also wants the sill height of the turbine installations to be increased.
Indian officials had strongly objected to his suggestions saying that such redesigning could only be done at a considerable cost that may make the project unviable. They had asked him to reconsider his proposals.
Pakistan also had some objections to the initial report and had conveyed them to Mr Laffite.
Official sources said the report observes that 89 per cent of all modern dam structures with a designed discharge of 14,000 cubic metres per second have gated spillways.
The report suggests that the chute spillway with a crest level of 821 metres should be placed at the highest level. He believes that five gates placed at 808 metres serve as outlets to evacuate sediment but he also advises Pakistan and India to draw a mechanism to resolve the issue of silt deposits.
On other technical issues, however, Prof Lafitte supports the Pakistani position. He determines that the 4.5-meter freeboard India had proposed is excessive and urges New Delhi to reduce it to 3 metres above the full power level. He also suggests fixing the dam’s crest elevation at 843 metres.
Mr Laffite also proposes that a 1.2-metre high parapet wall be placed on the dam’s crest to provide additional safety in case of future reassessment of hydrological construction.
Prof Lafitte last met Indian and Pakistani representatives in Washington from Nov 7-9. He discussed some points with them, advising Islamabad and New Delhi to send their feed backs to him before he finalises the report.
Mr Lafitte is a Swiss civil engineer and professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. The bank appointed him a neutral expert to resolve the dispute on May 10, 2005. Both India and Pakistan are obliged to accept his findings.
