ISLAMABAD, July 18 India has been awarded carbon credits by the United Nations for two hydropower projects — Chutak and Nimoo-Bazgo — contested by Pakistan for allegedly being constructed in violation of the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty amid a controversy over how their cross-boundary environmental impact assessment reports were not challenged by Pakistan.
The issue came to limelight when a private engineer complained to the prime minister that Pakistani authorities had either accepted the trans-boundary environmental impact assessment for the two power projects or they remained criminally oblivious to the development despite representing Pakistan on UN sub-committee on climate change. In his letters to the prime minister, engineer Arshad H. Abbasi demanded a detailed investigation into the lapse which might have already caused irreparable loss to Pakistan's position on the two projects.
Taking a cue from the letters, the chairperson of the National Assembly's Climate Change Committee, Ms Marvi Memon, has called for an urgent meeting of the committee to investigate how India was given permission for the trans-boundary environmental impact assessment. The committee has called officials of the ministries of water and power and foreign affairs to “explain how this criminal negligence took place”.
Pakistan has objected to the construction of the two projects constructed by India at the Permanent Indus Commission level. The under-construction 42-meter high Chutak Hydroelectric Project is located on the Suru River, a tributary of the Indus in the Kargil district of Indian-held Kashmir. The second project, 57-meter high Nimoo-Bazgo Hydroelectric Project, is being developed in the Leh District on the Indus. Both projects were launched in 2005. Nimoo-Bazgo is scheduled to be completed in August 2010, followed by Chutak in January 2011.
Mr Abbasi complained that under clause 37(b) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), it was mandatory for India to get approval from Pakistan before it started getting carbon credits but it has been earning the credits on the projects for two years now under the Clean Development Mechanism Project.
The projects were approved by UNFCCC for carbon credits in August 2008 for which India had applied in March 2006. He said it was mandatory for India to ratify the Environmental Assessment Report (EIA) of both projects from Pakistan to earn carbon credits against the projects but he was shocked to observe that the Project Design Documents of both projects were approved by CDM's Executive Board of UNFCCC, that showed that trans-boundary environmental impacts of these projects had been conducted.
He said that India reported in its validation report that trans-boundary environmental impacts were considered as per procedures laid down in clause 37(c) of CDM Modalities and Procedure.
He said that according to definition of International Commission on Large Dam (ICOLD), both dams are at a height of more than 15 metres and fall in the category of large dams that required a detail Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Report prior to physical execution of work on any large dam. India has started work on the dams on the Chenab, Indus and Jehlum rivers, also known as western rivers as per Indus Water Treaty signed in 1960. He said it was obligatory for India to contact and get the Transboundary Environment Impact Reports (TEIR) ratified for all upcoming and ongoing projects, including hydroelectric dams.
Mr Abbasi said India had already recognised the importance of TEIR in its counter memorial while pleading the case of Bagilhar Dam in 2006 before a neutral expert. The expert, he said, had held that a detailed TEIR and ratification by Pakistan was mandatory for India before execution of any project in the watershed of the three western rivers as declared in the Indus water treaty.
Mr Abbasi urged the prime minister to seek the TEIR of all ongoing development projects being executed in Indian-held Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh to assess the trans-boundary impact of these projects on Pakistan.