The Pakistan Indus Water Commission team will inspect two upcoming hydroelectric projects in J&K, and will be in India till 31 January.
New Delhi: A Pakistan delegation is in India for an inspection visit over suspicions in Islamabad that New Delhi may be taking “clandestine steps” to halt the water-sharing arrangement under the Indus Water Treaty (IWT), sources said.
The three-member Pakistan Indus Water Commission team is currently in Jammu to inspect the construction of the 1,000-MW Pakal Dul and the 48-MW Lower Kalnai hydroelectric projects over the river Chenab.
The delegation, led by Pakistani Indus water commissioner Syed Mehr Ali Shah, and comprising joint commissioner Usman Ghani and adviser Mehmood Hayat, is in India till 31 January.
The Indian side is being represented by P.K. Saxena, the Indus water commissioner, Ministry of Water Resources, and his team of advisers.
Sources told ThePrint that this was not the first time Pakistan had expressed its reservations on both projects. The Pakistan Indus Water Commission is said to have made several requests over the last four years to the Indian government to allow them to visit the site. However, it is only now that their request has been granted.
While the Pakistan government has no reservations about the construction of the dams as such, it has “doubts over their design”, sources said. It wants to ensure, they added, that the dams do not become a problem for them in the future and impede smooth flow of water to their country.
The visit to inspect both these projects was earlier slated to take place in October last year.
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A 59-year-old agreement
The Pakal Dul dam is a proposed 167-metre concrete-face rock-fill dam (CFRD) on the Marusadar river, a tributary of the Chenab, in the Kishtwar district of Jammu & Kashmir. Once completed, the project is expected to be the largest hydropower plant in the state, generating 1,000 MW of power.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid its foundation stone in May 2018, and it is expected to be completed by 2023.
Work on the 43-MW Lower Kalnai hydel project on the Lower Kalnai Nalla, another tributary of the river, is also under way.
The IWT, brokered by the World Bank, was signed by the two countries in Karachi in 1960 to share the waters of the Indus River System.
According to the treaty, India will obtain waters from the eastern rivers of the Indus system — Ravi, Sutlej and Beas — and Pakistan from the western ones, Indus, Jhelum and Chenab.
The IWT allows officials from the Permanent Indus Commission (PIC) — comprising the Indus water commissions of both countries — to visit the other country and inspect any new project that comes up with the potential to impact the flow of water.
In 2016, following the Uri attack, India suspended talks under the IWT and threatened to stop sharing water. India had stated then that it would divert waters from these rivers to address the water woes of Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi and Haryana.
The PIC is supposed to meet at least once every year, alternately in India and Pakistan. The 115th meeting of the PIC took place in August last year in Lahore. The 116th meeting is expected to take place in India later this year.
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This is an updated version of the report.