Indus valley cooperation

The neutral expert8217;s report on Baglihar opens possibilities, if only we8217;d look

The huge fuss Pakistan created over India8217;s Baglihar run-of-the-river hydroelectric project on the Chenab has, expectedly, ended as a storm in a teacup. If Islamabad claims a great victory, it is entitled to comfort itself with the cosmetic gains it has been accorded. The fact is that the Baglihar design has been upheld by the Neutral Expert NE, Raymond Lafitte, as being entirely consistent with the Indus Treaty and modern hydropower technology. The project can now move towards completion with marginal adjustments in respect of the freeboard, pondage and power intake as stipulated. These modifications should not cause any undue cost or time overrun and will in no way affect the planned benefits.

The parameters laid down by the NE sets the norm for all further schemes taken up under the treaty and to that extent should curb obstructionist objections against every project mooted by India as in the past. The 1.5 m reduction in the 4.5 m freeboard essentially a safety device to prevent overtopping of the dam in the event of sudden storm surges mandated by the NE was in fact a concession India had offered even earlier. Indeed, India was confident that all remaining issues could well be resolved, given another round of talks. But Pakistan was not interested in further dialogue and preferred external determination. Delay is quite often tantamount to denial.

Hopefully, Pakistan will now abandon such negativism, which appears driven more by internal politics than the technical merits of its case. There was a scent of this in the reported remarks of the minister and secretary of its Water and Power Development Authority at a press conference on the day the NE8217;s report was released. They spoke of monitoring compliance in case India reneged and possibly even seeking arbitration if Pakistan came to the conclusion that the award itself was made in violation of the treaty!

The NE has emphasised that the rights and duties of the parties must be read in the light of the evolving state of the art since the treaty was signed in 1960. The overriding criteria must be 8220;the most complete and satisfactory utilisation of the waters of the Indus system8221; in a spirit of 8220;cooperation, goodwill and friendship8221;, taking into account 8220;the most economical design8221;, the 8220;best and latest practices in the field of construction and operation8221;, safety factors, and the protection of live storage against sedimentation in the interest of 8220;sustainability8221;, which must necessarily include 8220;draw down sluicing and flushing8221; and advance action in view of the uncertainties of looming climate change.

Lafitte examined world experience and noted that the Warsak Dam on the Kabul river in Pakistan and Salal in J038;K on the Chenab below Baglihar had been rendered ineffective by heavy silting, the latter resulting from an injudicious concession made to Pakistan. Islamabad8217;s objection to Baglihar has been that its allegedly oversized pondage, gated spillway and under sluices enable India strategically to dry up or flood the Chenab to military advantage. The same argument was used to block Salal.

Lafitte has firmly rejected Pakistan8217;s desired reduction of the Baglihar pondage from 37 million cu m to 6.22 m cu m to convert the project from a peaking to a 8220;constant base load8221; station, thus defeating both purpose and viability. However, he has marginally reduced the project8217;s designed pondage based on a different calculus.

Pakistan8217;s fears are bizarre. Baglihar is 110 km from the international boundary and any sudden impounding of waters would first hurt Indian villages. Pakistan would be far less affected, if at all, because the geometry of the valley would cause progressive dissipation and attenuation of the flood.

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One can only hope that Lafitte8217;s ruling will induce sobriety. India has modified its Kishenganga project, following local objections to submergence and displacement in the Gurez Valley, substantially blunting Pakistan8217;s earlier objections. The project should now be actively pursued as also the Wullar Lake 8220;barrage8221;. This envisages a flood detention mechanism to stagger the Wullar8217;s natural monsoon pondage through to improve navigation. The barrage will in fact serve to moderate the Jhelum flood, reduce its silt load and enhance energy output at the Uri dam in India and the Mangla dam in Pakistan.

With Baglihar behind us, India should boldly propose meaningful steps under the terms of Chapter VII of the Indus Treaty that enjoins 8220;future cooperation8221; to optimise the Indus system8217;s potential in the 8220;common interest8221;. Both countries are confronting the early effects of climate change, with glacier melt and aberrant weather, and need to insure against growing water stress and looming hydrological uncertainties. The 1960 treaty merely partitioned the waters of the Indus and left optimisation for future cooperation. That time has come.

Pakistan is running out of storage sites on the Indus main and has none barring a modest Neelum Valley dam on the Jhelum and Chenab, all of them 8220;western rivers8221; allocated to it. The headwaters of all three rivers lie in the Indian part of J038;K. At the same time, India has not been able to develop the 1.34 million acres of irrigation and 3.60 million acre feet of storage on the western rivers as provided for in the treaty for uses in J038;K, including regulating flows to moderate floods. India too could better utilise the waters of the lower Ravi and some of its tributaries, as permitted, and improve drainage in Punjab, Haryana and Western Rajasthan in cooperation with Pakistan to mutual benefit.

Pakistan8217;s 2004 Technical and Parliamentary Reports on developing the Indus Basin assumes that India will not be able fully to utilise its allocation of waters from the three western rivers. Beggar-my-neighbour policies can only cause mutual damage. Instead, with the peace process in J038;K getting under way, future cooperation on the Indus, or Indus II, holds out real promise. What better means of making boundaries irrelevant than by integrating the natural resource economies of both sides of J038;K to everybody8217;s benefit?

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Lafitte has done his bit. It is now for India and Pakistan to use his report as a springboard for a new era of mutual cooperation. Water Resource Minister Saifuddin Soz has made some statements hinting that this is the way forward. It would be eminently appropriate therefore to place a concrete proposal on the table.

The writer has authored the book, 8216;Waters of Hope8217;