India agrees to change the design of the Kishanganga project it is building in Kashmir to accommodate Pakistan
Sonal Joshi
May 9, 2005

India has agreed to accommodate Pakistan by changing the design of the Kishanganga project it is building in Kashmir.

India said today, according to Reuters, it would change the design of the Kishanganga project it is building in Kashmir if it is unable to address Pakistan's objections to it under a decades-old watersharing treaty.

India's assurance came on the first day of talks in the Pakistani city of Lahore on the 330-megawatt hydro-power project, which Pakistan says violates the 1960 Indus Water treaty. "It is our responsibility to remove the objections Pakistan has on the Kishanganga project," India's Water Commissioner D K Mehta told reporters.

"If we are unable to remove the objections of Pakistan under the Indus Water Treaty, we will have to change the design of Kishanganga," he said.

Under the Indus Water Treaty, India has rights to the waters of the Ravi, Sutlej and Beas rivers while Pakistan has rights to the waters of the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum. All the rivers flow from India to Pakistan.

The Kishanganga project involves the diversion of water from one tributary of the Jhelum river to another, which according to India is permissable under the treaty. Pakistan says it is not.

Pakistan also has reservations about the design of the dam, said Pakistan's Indus Water Commissioner, Jamaat Ali Shah.

Pakistan's plan for its own power station on the Jhelum would be affected if India built the Kishanganga, he added.

Pakistan also has asked the World Bank to intervene to resolve a row over India's plans to build a $1 billion hydro-power project, known as the Baglihar dam, on the Chenab river. The two countries also plan to hold talks later this month on how to resolve their conflict on a disputed glacier high in the Himalayas where Pakistani and Indian forces have been facing off for about 20 years.

Defence officials of the two countries will meet in Islamabad on May 25 for two days to discuss the row on the icy wastes of the Siachin glacier, 5,500 metres above sea level in the north of the Kashmir region.

The two sides have discussed the dispute many times but India has been reluctant to withdraw, fearing Pakistani troops would move up and occupy the glacier.

Since the mid-1970s, India has been planning to build the Kishanganga Dam to generate power. The project would require the diversion of water from the Jhelum River, which flows into the Pakistan-administered part of Kashmir.

Pakistan says the proposed project would violate a 1960 World Bank-brokered Indus Water Treaty that regulates the sharing of river water between the two countries. Jamat Ali Shah, head of Pakistani delegation at the three-day talks, said diversion of water is not allowed in the treaty.

"This will affect some of our downstream projects,'''' Shah told reporters after Sunday's talks.

He said Pakistan also objects to the proposed dam's design, but did not elaborate. Earlier the talks began this morning in Lahore. While D K Mehta, head of Permanent Indus Water Commission for India led the Indian delegation; Jamat Ali Shah, Commissioner of Pakistan’s Permanent Indus Water Commission, led Pakistan side. Talks to resolve Kishenganga were the second such attempt being made by the two countries to resolve differences over the hydropower project being built by Indian in Jammu and Kashmir.

Officials from the Permanent Indus Water Commissions of both the countries, who earlier failed to resolve differences over Baglihar hydropower project, kicked off the exercise to iron out differences this time on Kishenganga project under the provisions of the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty.

Pakistan said its main objection to the Kishenganga project was the 21km long underground canal envisaged by India, which it alleges was violation of the treaty. Shah told the media ahead of today's talks that Pakistan has already conveyed its objections during the past two rounds of meetings with their Indian counterparts on Kishenganga and wanted a resolution within a timeframe.

State run PTV and other media reports emanating from Lahore quoted Mehta as suggesting that India was willing address Pakistan's concerns over the project and take a re-look at the design of the dam.

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