Lights off

The plan was to increase the water to the navigational level of 4-ft in lean season8212;this way the 20-km stretch from Sopore to Baramulla could be navigated. 8220;Though India was projecting it as a navigational project but the real idea was to make a barrage for storing water temporarily during the flood season and letting it out during the winter season,8221; says a source who didn8217;t wish to be named.

The water would have been a boon for the Uri power generation project and Lower Jhelum project in winter, when because of water scarcity, the power generation capacity is reduced to 10 per cent of the average potential.

But work on the project was stopped in 1987. Pakistan objected saying it was a 8216;clear8217; violation of the 1960 Indus water treaty. India, it said, 8220;wants to control the flow of the river and also use it as a geo-strategic weapon.8221; Pakistan also felt that the barrage also has the potential to disrupt the triple canal project of Pakistan-Upper Jhelum Canal, Upper Chenab Canal and the Lower Bari Doab Canal.

The 1960 Treaty assigned the unrestricted use of the eastern rivers of the Indus basin including Beas, Ravi and Sutlej to India and of the western rivers including Chenab, Indus and Jhelum to Pakistan.

It, however, permitted India the limited use of the western rivers for domestic and agricultural use, run-of-the-river hydroelectric generation and any non-consumptive use that did not diminish the water flow to Pakistan.

However, Pakistan was not convinced and maintained that with some 95 per cent of its river water originating or running through Jammu and Kashmir, it could hardly ignore the Wular Barrage. Pakistan took the case to Indus Waters Commission in 1986, a year later it admitted its failure to resolve the issue. Before Pakistan moved the International Arbitral Court, India stopped all construction. The work on the barrage began in 1984 but was stopped in 1987 by the Rajiv Gandhi government after Pakistan protested. Many in India believe that stopping construction was a mistake and that the decision was taken by Rajiv Gandhi to please Benazir Bhutto.

Controlling water for navigation is a permissible activity under the Indus Water Treaty. The Indian position is that the Tulbul Navigation Project is neither an act of storage nor of impounding the waters of the Jhelum, but of controlling the flow for navigation. The project would leave the volume of water flowing to Pakistan intact. Since 1987, around ten rounds of secretary talks have been held till now-last round in August 2004.Meanwhile, here8217;s the J-K government take on the issue.

8220;Pakistan is already unhappy over the World Bank decision. Initially their response was well measured and quite tempered but now they have decided to appeal to the World Bank again. So taking up Tulbul at this point might harm Baglihar. We can take it up later,8221; says Nuwan Rigzin Jora, J-K power minister.