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Pak-India talks on Kishanganga Hydro Project break down
* Second round of talks scheduled for October
* India rejects Pak claims of compensation for ‘damage’ by Baglihar
LAHORE/NEW DELHI: Talks between Pakistan and India on the
controversial Kishanganga Hydro Power Project have broken down, a
private TV channel quoted Pakistan Indus Water Commissioner Jamaat
Ali Shah as saying on Friday.
Talking to media in Islamabad on his return from India, Shah said
the issue of the Kishanganga project came under discussion at the
request of India but no progress could be made.
Indian and Pakistani officials had on Friday approved, after
strenuous negotiations, the minutes of the annual Permanent Indus
Commission meeting.
Though the meeting concluded on Wednesday, there were serious
disagreements on the wording, content and notes of discussions.
Both sides agreed on matters such as strengthening and enlarging the
role of the commission to include issues like global warning,
climate change and melting glaciers affecting the Indus line system,
but New Delhi rejected Islamabad's demand to compensate for what
Islamabad alleges to be the choking of the River Chenab’s water
supply last year, when the Baglihar power project was commissioned.
Pakistan had raised the issue of compensation for the choking of
200,000 cusecs of water in the Chenab by New Delhi in August, 2008,
to fill up the newly-constructed Baglihar dam in Indian-held
Kashmir.
Pakistan claimed it had suffered bad crops due to minimal water
inflows. India has rejected the charge, citing hydrological data.
Shah said Pakistan had the option of approaching the World Bank in
case India continues to reject Pakistan’s stance under the Indus
Water Treaty.
An official at India’s Ministry of Water Resources said there has
never been an agreement on issues like water compensation,
Kishanganga and Uri-II. He said "Pakistan has assumed that India has
held back water. But we have told them that this assumption is not
correct as last year’s flow of water (in the Chenab) was low
anyway".
Will try again: Shah said a second round of talks between Pakistan
and India on the commissioner level would be held in October in
Pakistan.
Meanwhile, experts suggest that water wars between the neigbouring
countries are set to aggravate due to climate changes affecting
Himalayan glaciers. Professor M Sultan from the geography department
at the University of Kashmir believed that the depletion of the
glaciers was a real threat. He maintains that the temperature in the
region has shown disturbing trends since 1950. “From 1950 to 1975,
the temperature had shown a cooling trend, but from 1975 and
onwards, there has been a ‘warming’ trend in the temperature and
this continues; it is expected to increase further,” he said. daily
times monitor/iftikhar gilani
Daily Times:
Saturday, June 06, 2009 |
