LAHORE: Officials from Pakistan and India’s water agencies ended a two-day meet on Thursday where they failed to resolve differences over the Pakal Dul and Lower Kalnai dam projects.
Pakal Dul is a hydropower project with an expected gross storage of 108,000 acre feet of water. The project was designed in a manner that would facilitate the dam being filled every monsoon season between June and August.
The Lower Kalnai project -- on the left bank tributary of Chenab – is expected to have a gross storage of 1,508 acre feet of water.
A nine-member Indian delegation, led by Water Commissioner of India, P K Saxena, arrived in the city on Tuesday by crossing the Wagah-Attari border on foot. They were received by Pakistan’s Water Commissioner, Syed Mehr Ali Shah, and additional commissioner Sheraz Jamil.
It was the first meeting between the two nations since Prime Minister Imran Khan took office on August 18. Pakistan has expressed serious reservations over the designs of the two projects, demanding that India either modifies the designs, according to the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), or puts the projects on hold.
Specific among the demands is that India reduces the height of the water storage capacity of the Pakal Dul dam by five meters, while its spillway gates should be 40 meters higher than the sea level.
The Indian delegation refused to entertain the request, accusing Pakistan of not constructing the water reservoirs on time and wasting a huge amount of the water in the process.
India, on its part, said that its facing water shortage due to climate change too.
The two sides also failed to agree upon a schedule for a future meeting.
Water commissioners from both countries are required to meet twice a year and arrange technical visits to projects’ sites, but Pakistan has been complaining of facing problems in scheduling meetings and visits in the past.
The Pakal Dul and Lower Kalnai dams are on two different tributaries of the Chenab river. India had promised in March last year that it would modify the designs and address Pakistan’s concerns but failed to do so. In May this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation for the 1,000MW Pakal Dul project on the Indian side. As per Indian news reports, the project is expected to be completed in five and half years and provide free electricity to 12 percent of Indian- held Jammu and Kashmir.
“Talks are good but would be better if they are result-oriented. Water scarcity is an existential threat to Pakistan and we have to be vigilant to protect our interests within the framework of IWT,” Punjab Minister for Irrigation, Sardar Mohsin Khan Leghari, told Arab News.
The two-day talks were the eighth round of dialogue between the two countries, with the most recent session held in Delhi in March this year. At the time, both sides had shared details of the water flow and the quantum of water being used under the IWT.
The IWT was signed in 1960 after nine years of negotiations, with the World Bank being a guarantor signatory. The treaty sets out a mechanism for cooperation and information exchange for Pakistan and India regarding their use of the rivers. Under the provisions of the IWT, waters of the eastern rivers — Sutlej, Beas and Ravi — had been allocated to India, and the western rivers — the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab — to Pakistan, except for certain non-consumptive uses for India.
