Bharat Rakshak

Pakistan has issued the threat in a recent letter to India, the third such communication in last one year, official sources said.

Following concerns about submergence voiced by Pakistan, India reviewed the project in 2006, converting it from a storage project to a 'run-of-river plant', which is a type of hydroelectric generation whereby the natural flow and elevation drop of a river are used to generate power.

The reviewed data was communicated to Pakistan in June 2006.

Last year, when Pakistan had threatened to move the WB, India's Indus Commissioner G Ranganathan had written to his counterpart Syed Jamaat Ali Shah emphasising that approaching the international organisation was not warranted as the matter could be resolved through bilateral talks, the sources said.

Pakistan is yet to respond to this invitation, they said.

Concerned over blockade of Pakistan’s waters by India, MNA Palwasha Khan, Member of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, wrote an open letter to the United Nations Secretary General on Sunday. Following is the text of the letter:

“I have been compelled to write to you as an anguished Pakistani, concerned at a reality that horrifies me and the majority of this nation, resulting from the blockade of Pakistan’s river waters by her neighbour, India. As a member of Parliament, desirous of lasting peace, forced to view the future of the relations of the two neighbours from the prism of the aqueous violence unleashed onto Pakistan by its neighbour India, unfortunately, only devastation looms on the horizon.

Pining for peace between the neighbours, I represent a generation that has not been witness to the bitterest portions of history between the two, neither partition which claimed millions of lives nor wars that were fought between India and Pakistan. Hence, there is little room for unfounded biases except stark reality which stares us in the face now that of a parched Pakistan.

It cannot be denied that the lives of people in the world have been intimately intertwined with its rivers, so have been ours. The relationship between rivers in the Subcontinent and her people is as old as the history of humanity. These rivers have also hosted once mighty civilizations along their banks and been a witness to their demise, inasmuch as they are custodians of our history.

Flowing since time immemorial, our rivers have been close to our people’s hearts and souls. Serving as holy waters in India to being the claviger of love and romance of the folk tales in Punjab, only love has flown through the rivers of the Subcontinent. From dreamy eyed lovers yearning for the beloved on the banks of the great Chinab to the fabled khagga fish of the river Ravi, people have connected to the rivers in folklore and songs since centuries. Unfortunately today, the ebb and flow of the waters of love has the potential to spin into hate and destruction between India and Pakistan.

The mighty Sindhu, figured in the Rig Vedas, identified as the father of rivers, sadly, today faces destruction at the hands of India, which derives her name from the Indus. Having, fathered the largest and one of the oldest civilizations of the world sprawling an area of 350,000sqkm, Sindhu or the Indus is also the world’s heritage. Today, it cries out to the world to save it from a bleak fate, the world should not remain silent.”

chaanakya wrote:They can't even bomb dams on indian side as this would put tremendous water pressure on mangala, Tarbela and merala headworks ( as the case may be ) that they would collapse. India would also have to empty its dams in such a scenario to avoid damage to other water works.

Theo_Fidel wrote:http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=236097
aqueous violence unleashed onto Pakistan by its neighbour India

Theo_Fidel wrote:

chaanakya wrote:They can't even bomb dams on indian side as this would put tremendous water pressure on mangala, Tarbela and merala headworks ( as the case may be ) that they would collapse. India would also have to empty its dams in such a scenario to avoid damage to other water works.

I repeatedly hear this nonsense of bombing dams.

It is not so easy to bring down a modern concrete dam.

The huge mass of concrete had suddenly exploded, and an entire section had collapsed under the water pressure. A gap measuring 100 meters wide by 30 meters high opened the middle of the construction. And a wild flood of 134 millions cubic meters entered between its ragged flanks

chaanakya wrote:Difficult yes, Impossible No

The huge mass of concrete had suddenly exploded, and an entire section had collapsed under the water pressure. A gap measuring 100 meters wide by 30 meters high opened the middle of the construction. And a wild flood of 134 millions cubic meters entered between its ragged flanks

Nooks not needed at all. Bunker Buster types may be enough to breach a gap. rest will be done by water pressure.

Downstream dams would not need any bom only water pressure would be suffice. A concrete can withstand only so much pressure and no more. See the Concrete test results

Mumbai terrorist group threaten Indian 'water jihad'

Pakistani terrorists behind the Mumbai attacks have threatened to launch a fresh jihad against India over disputed water rights.

Rob Crilly, in Lahore
Published: 4:43PM BST 27 Apr 2010

The Indian and Pakistani prime ministers are due to meet on Wednesday amid escalating tensions over limited water resources.

Pakistan has repeatedly accused India of breaching the terms of a 1960 treaty governing the use of shared river systems, complaining that irrigation channels on its side of the border have emptied.

The issue has now been adopted by militants in Jamaat-ud-Dawah, widely regarded as a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Jihadi group fighting Indian troops in Kashmir and responsible for the November 2008 wave of gun and bomb attacks that killed at least 170 people in Mumbai.

Hafiz Saeed, the founder of Lashka-e-Taibi and head of Jamaat-ud-Dawah, threatened a water war with India during a recent TV interview.

"Look at India's attitude, especially after the 9/11 attacks. It has taken advantage of Pakistan's weaknesses and made dams and stopped our water.

Pakistan, for its defence, will have to fight a war at all costs with India if it is not prepared for talks on Kashmir and water," Saeed said in an interview with Frontline, a private TV channel. ……………………

Telegraph, UK

If there is one issue that has a greater chance of sparking a full-fledged war between India and Pakistan, other than the Kashmir issue, it is the issue of India blocking the waters of the western rivers against the spirit of the Indus Water Treaty.

Whether it is a perception, as claimed by India, or a reality, is irrelevant, as perceptions are always stronger than reality.

The position on the ground is that India plans to produce around 16,000MW electricity from the hydel-power potentials of Kashmir, most of which are based on the western rivers, which are allocated to Pakistan under the Indus Water Treaty. This is about 80 per cent of Pakistan's total installed capacity and much more than what Pakistan currently produces.

GUJRAT: A bitter dispute over limited water resources is fueling India-Pakistan tensions at a time when the South Asian neighbors are trying to rebuild trust and resume peace talks.
It's a long-running feud that has worsened in recent months as a dry spell focuses attention on Pakistan's growing water shortage. Three days of talks in March ended with both sides trading barbs and failing to reach a resolution.The issue was raised Thursday when the leaders of the two countries met at a regional summit in Bhutan and agreed on the need to normalize relations, the Pakistani side said.Further complicating the situation, extremists are trying to capitalize on allegations that India is stealing water from glacier-fed rivers that start in the disputed territory of Kashmir.
Independent experts say there is no evidence to support those charges, but they warn that Pakistani concerns about India's plans to build at least 15 new dams need to be addressed to avoid conflict.''If you want to give Lashkar-e-Taiba and other Pakistani militants an issue that really rallies people, give them water,'' said John Briscoe, ( Briscoe , a new God of pakistanian) who has worked on water issues in the two countries for 35 years and was the World Bank's senior water adviser.Farmers in Pakistan's central breadbasket are certainly angry.''India has blocked our water because they are our enemy,'' said Mohammad, a 65-year-old farmer in the town of Gujrat who goes by only one name.His farm sits a few miles (kilometers) from the Chenab River, which residents say has been shrinking since India completed a hydroelectric dam in its part of Kashmir in 2008. In some sections, water flows in only a tenth of the river bed, and nearby irrigation canals have dried up.Indian officials blame any reduction on natural variation and climate change, which have hurt India as well. They add that Pakistan's antiquated irrigation system wastes large quantities of water.''Preposterous and completely unwarranted allegations of stealing water and waging a water war are being made against India,'' the Indian ambassador to Pakistan, Sharat Sabharwal, said in a speech in April.The animosity over water could make it more difficult to resolve the signature dispute between the two countries: the decades-long struggle over Kashmir.The United States has been seeking to reduce India-Pakistan tensions, hoping that would free Pakistan to move troops away from the Indian front to fight militants attacking US and Nato troops in Afghanistan from sanctuaries near the Afghan border.''The issues of Kashmir and terrorism are going to be much more difficult if we don't have an agreement on water,'' said water expert Briscoe, now a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health.The origin of the water dispute can be traced to the creation of Pakistan and India in 1947, when the British Indian empire was partitioned. The split gave India control of the part of Kashmir that is the source of six rivers that irrigate crops in Pakistan's agricultural heartland of Punjab province and elsewhere.Under a 1960 agreement, Pakistan has the use of the three western rivers _ the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab _ and India, the three eastern ones _ the Sutlej, Beas and Ravi.India was granted limited use of Pakistan's rivers for agricultural purposes, plus the right to build hydroelectric dams, as long as they don't store or divert large amounts of water.Pakistan is one of the driest countries in the world, and water availability per person has fallen from about 5,000 cubic meters (175,000 cubic feet) in 1947 to around 1,000 cubic meters (35,000 cubic feet) today. Most of the drop is a result of rapid population growth, but recent shortages have heightened suspicion about India.Pakistan's Indus water commissioner, Jamat Ali Shah, doesn't accuse India of stealing water, but he says India isn't providing information required under the 1960 pact to prove that it's not.''There should be nothing in the track record that shows India has violated the treaty,'' said Shah. ''But it is a fact that the track record is not clear.''India denies any intention to cut off water to Pakistan and maintains that it has complied with the treaty. But as with other issues between the two countries, mistrust runs high.''If he has the capacity to hurt me, the best that can be said about him is that he will use it for blackmailing and the worst is that he will use it to harm me,'' said Shams ul Mulk, the former head of Pakistan's Ministry of Water and Power.Briscoe said the dams India is planning to build could give it the ability to choke off water to Pakistan if it wanted to pressure its neighbor.India should provide automatic flow data to Pakistan, he said, while also warning that heated rhetoric on the Pakistan side would only embolden extremists.—AP

On the water front and the charges of India violating the Indus Waters Treaty – leaving Pakistan high and dry – and referring to demands for reworking the agreement, Mr. Qureshi asserted: “It would be dangerous to suggest that the treaty should be worked out afresh.'' About India ‘stealing' Pakistan's water, he lamented the tendency to exaggerate and pass the buck. Reeling out statistics, he sought to draw attention to the poor water management by Pakistan.

On the specific question of India building dams on the “Indian side of Kashmir,” he said: “We need to see if they are as per the treaty or in violation of it. We are not only bound by the treaty but also its annexure. {Aren't the Annexures part of the Treaty ? What is he blabbering about ?} If there is a violation, we will definitely take it up.''

The thrust of the narrative is that somehow, India is stealing our rightful share of the water that is due to us under the Indus Waters Treaty. This accusation is constantly bandied about despite the clear assertion from our officials charged with monitoring river flows into Pakistan that there has been no diversion of our water by India. - Looks like the dimwits are finally acknowledging that India has never violated the treaty despite the innumerable reasons India has to violate

Nevertheless, this is a highly emotive issue, and needs to be dispassionately analysed. According to Tariq Hassan, an eminent lawyer: “Water is the most strategic issue facing the subcontinent. If there is a war here in the future, it will be over water.” He makes the point that the treaty itself is inimical to Pakistan’s interest, and should not have been signed by Ayub Khan.
- The treaty is not in India's interest either as the majority of the water was given to Pakistan

Another take on the issue comes from John Briscoe, a South African expert who has spent three decades in South Asia, and has served as a senior advisor on water issues to the World Bank. In an article titled War or Peace on the Indus?, Briscoe places the matter in a political context:

“Living in Delhi and working in both India and Pakistan, I was struck by a paradox. One country was a vigorous democracy, the other a military regime. But whereas important parts of the Pakistani press regularly reported India’s views on the water issue in an objective way, the Indian press never did the same. I never saw a report which gave Indian readers a factual description of the enormous vulnerability of Pakistan, of the way India had socked it to Pakistan when filling Baglihar…. - what an idiot - the treaty defines when such dams can be filled and India filled it as per the treaty provisions.

Briscoe makes the point that even though India was cleared of any technical violation of the treaty in building Baglihar dam by an international panel of experts its timing of the diversion of the river to fill the dam caused great hardship to farmers in Pakistan. He goes on to argue that as the upper riparian, India can and should do much more to reassure Pakistan that it has no intention of violating the letter or spirit of the treaty. Above all, Briscoe puts the onus on Indian opinion makers to do much more to explain the issues fairly to the Indian public. - Why should India do more than what is required specially when the only thing its get back from Pakistan is terrorism. There is no legal obligation of India to do anything more.

The fact is that just as Pakistan faces a future of dwindling water supplies, so does India. And if both countries are to solve their chronic power shortages, they will have to build dams. There is thus a need to develop deeper understanding about common problems and shared solutions. Given the deep distrust that separates the two countries, it is unlikely that any sane, rational solution will emerge any time soon. Meanwhile the situation will worsen with rising numbers and diminishing water availability. Tensions are bound to rise, and there might well be a media-fuelled clamour to somehow force India to release more water.

Pakistan had taken up the issue but Pakistani authorities have a "tendency to exaggerate" and "pass the buck" in this regard, Qureshi said.
The average supply of water that reaches Pakistan is 104 million acre feet while the water that is consumed is 70 million acre feet. "Where is the 34 million acre feet of water going? Is India stealing that water from you? No, it is not. Please do not fool yourselves. We are mismanaging that water," Qureshi said.

ISLAMABAD: “We want to retain the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT). It is India that wants to circumvent the provisions,” alleges Syed Jamat Ali Shah, Pakistan’s Indus Water Commissioner, talking to The News from his office in Lahore.

Elaborating to The News, he added, “Pakistan has a principled stance on the issue of river water sharing with India. We want to work within the ambit of the treaty. But we want transparency, as the Indian track record is not good . India is in breach of the treaty . They do not listen to our objections . This is a breach of the treaty. ”

Pakistan has reportedly awarded the contract for the Neelum-Jhelum project to a Chinese firm. Work on this project is underway on a hectic schedule. Pakistan cites the right of “prior appropriation” under the IWT as the reason behind this high-altitude development race. Not everyone is convinced. India has started the work much in advance. This is ridiculous.

Dr Robert G. Wirsing, a member of the faculty of the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii and an expert on South Asian affairs, recently said in a lecture in Islamabad that the Treaty had inherent weaknesses. -Recently these experts are popping up - an Hawaiian expert.
“The solution to water disputes is heavily tied with the fate of Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.

According to the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences (another expert) , Himalayan glaciers -- a major source of water for India and Pakistan -- are melting at an alarming pace due to global warming.

The International Centre for Mountain Area Development (ICIMOD) (another expert) has produced similar findings after extensive research.

“Pakistan needs to prioritise water and power development,” says Dr. Manzoor Ahmad Malik (another expert), Director of the Pakistan Council for Research in Water Resources (PCRWR).

“India has generated 8,296 MW electricity working within the 1.2 MAF limits imposed for the water India can store on the Chenab River under the IWT,” Adviser to the Centre for Research on Security Studies and Research Fellow with the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) Arshad H. Abbasi (another expert) points out.
“We have no limit on how much water to store on the Chenab, yet all we are able to generate is only 13 MW! ”

“The more urgent problem is watershed management in the catchment areas of the Indus River System.

“We must ensure the natural ecosystems are not disturbed,” says seasoned development expert Syed Ayub Qutub, urging cooperation “for we are all the children of the monsoons”.

Dr Shahid Ahmad (one more expert) of the Pakistan Agriculural Research Council wants urgent action to “manage the shared underground water resources in the Indus Basin sustainably.” He is also for joint watershed management in the upper catchment areas of the western rivers. The IWT does not provide for any of this.

However, the issue is not simply one of resource consumption. Nearly, 1.25 billion people in India and Pakistan are directly and indirectly affected by these mysterious happenings around the IWT, notes Dr Mubashir Hasan urging all to respect the treaty. Most independent experts in Pakistan agree.

They include Shamsul Mulk, a known expert on water resources , who hopes in the coming years when both Pakistan and India are faced with greater pressures, India’s conduct will not negate the spirit of understanding reached in signing the treaty.

“The important thing about water treaties is the conduct of the upper riparian, which determines the treaty’s success and failure,” he notes.

In Pakistan, this is likely to continue being seen as the prevalent bottomline, our own weaknesses and lack of monitoring notwithstanding. It is clear, however, that water will continue to top the bilateral agendas for some time.

NOTE: This concludes a four-part series of reports under Aman ki Asha’s ‘Water is Life’ campaign initiated to discuss and debate the ‘water issue’ between India and Pakistan in an open, non-emotional manner.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has finally decided to approach the International Court of Arbitration against construction of the controversial Kishanganga Hydropower Project by India in alleged violation of 1960 Indus Waters Treaty and has formed a team of legal experts to fight the case.

Informed sources told Dawn on Sunday that Professor Kaiyan Homi Kaikobad, an international legal expert of Pakistan origin, would lead the team at the International Court of Arbitration.

He will be assisted by officials of ministries of water and power, law and justice and foreign affairs and Pakistan’s permanent commissioner to the Indus Commission and a few Pakistani lawyers.

The sources said that a group of government officials had recommended that James Crawford be hired for the job because he had represented Pakistan before the neutral expert when Pakistan took its case on the controversial Baglihar project on the Chenab a few years ago. However, prime minister’s adviser on water resources Kamal Majidullah opposed the move saying the outcome of Baglihar case was generally not in Pakistan’s favour. The government is estimated to have allocated about $10 million for the case. Good that they have finally acknowledged that they lost the case in Baglihar.

The sources said that India had almost completed the 22-km tunnel to divert Kishanganga (Neelum) waters to Wullar Lake in violation of the Indus Waters Treaty and was working to complete the 330MW project by 2016. If completed, the project would severely affect Pakistan’s rights over the river, reduce the river flows into Pakistan and minimise its power generation capacity of the 969MW Neelum Jhelum Hydropower project near Muzaffarabad in Azad Kashmir.

They said that Pakistan’s Permanent Indus Water Commissioner had requested the government in March last year to quickly take up the case with the International Court of Arbitration after all options at the level of Permanent Indus Commission had been exhausted. It, however, took the government more than 14 months to seriously consider the advice.

Meanwhile, the Indian government’s project update reveals that about 33 billion Indian rupees sanctioned for the 330MW Kishanganga project in January last year has been increased to Rs37 billion.

“Work has restarted after settlement of outstanding issues. The project is expected to be completed by January 2016,” Indian documents reveal.

Pakistan has been opposing the project for more than a decade because it could stop water flows into Jhelum river. Bilateral talks have so far failed to yield any result to Pakistan’s satisfaction. The sources said Pakistan might have already lost priority rights over the project “as this tunnel is the major component of the project”. If they have lost priority rights then why goto the International Court of Arbitration

Like the Chenab, the Jhelum of which Neelum is an integral part belongs to Pakistan under the 1960 treaty. Under the treaty, India cannot divert waters from Jhelum and Chenab rivers. Really - this is a new interpretation of the treaty. India is allowed to divert Jhelum provided it does so first and that there is no prior use of the water downstream.

The Kishanganga project is located about 160 kilometres upstream of Muzzafarabad and involves diversion of the Kishanganga or Neelum to a tributary named Bunar Madumati Nullah of the Jhelum through a 22-km tunnel. Its power house will be built near Bunkot and the water will be re-routed into the Jhelum river through Wullar Lake, drying up a long stretch of the river on the Pakistani side.

When completed, the project would reduce the flow (pressure) of the Neelum and decrease the power generation capability of Pakistan’s proposed 969-MW Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project by more than 20 per cent or about 100-MW.

India has continued with the work on the project despite serious objections by Pakistan that it could not allow even a minor diversion of the river. Pakistan first received reports about Indian intentions to develop the project in 1988 but India officially confirmed it in the mid-1990s. This is a factual lie. Pakistan was told about it in 1988. They are trying to fudge the dates to get the priority rights.
The issue had been on the agenda of the Permanent Indus Commission for more than eight years now, the sources said. Pakistan is constructing its 969MW Neelum-Jhelum project, which also is expected to be completed by 2016. Under the treaty, India cannot change the flow of Jehlum river even for power generation that may affect any Pakistani power project. The treaty provides Pakistan exclusive rights to use the water of western rivers -- Indus, Jehlum and Chenab -- while eastern rivers -- Ravi, Sutlej and Beas -- have been assigned to India. Again a mis-representation of the treaty. India is allowed to use the western river waters as laid out by the treaty provisions

Mr Kaikobad who has done his PhD from London School of Economics is a fellow of Royal Geographical Society (FRGS). Formerly a legal adviser to the government of Bahrain, he is currently a professor of law and director of research at Brunel University. I wonder what he actually learnt - he cant read a simple treaty with his PhD.

Two observations are worth making with regard to the process and the decision of the Neutral Expert:

Firstly, as appeared from the composition of the two delegations, Pakistan seemed to have viewed the difference as largely a legal one, involving the interpretation of the Treaty, while India seemed to have viewed it mainly as an engineering one, regarding hydropower plants (Executive Summary, 2007).

Secondly, the Neutral Expert opined that the rights and obligations of the parties under the Treaty should be read in the light of new technical norms and new standards as provided for by the Treaty. This meant that the Baglihar difference was addressed bearing in mind the technical standards for hydropower plants as they have developed in the first decade of the twenty-first century, and not as perceived and thought of in 1950s when the Treaty was negotiated.

For instance, as long as India wants power from the dam, it would need to release a certain amount of water. If the intake to the turbines is higher (as Pakistan wanted it), then when the flow of the river is low, India exhausts its power generation capability earlier, and then has no incentive to keep water flowing. Likewise why the bottom level of the gates should be as high as possible is not clear to me.

A_Gupta wrote:
The problem is the reflexive hostility between the two countries, not the treaty or any engineering issues.

There is a sense of frustration in Pakistan and a perception that India is usurping Pakistan’s waters. The Indian reluctance to share information about the planned water projects is not helping matters. What we need on the water issue is transparency.

Regarding Pakistan's fears of India blocking the flow - the Chenab has a mean flow of 800 cubic meters/second, and the Baglihar storage is 400 million cubic meters.
In 6 days, the Chenab provides 800 * 86400 * 6 = 414 million cubic meters of water. So India, at worst, could completely deny water to Pakistan for 6 days maximum, if it had the full reservoir to play with. And this will affect Pakistan only if Pakistan has absolutely zero storage on the Chenab (which is not true). Given the pondage of around 40 million cubic meters, India can affect a total cutoff for only about half a day.

symontk wrote: Imagine the impact of 100 or so projects planned by India on the rivers "given" to Pakistan, its a real threat, Pakis feel

Pakistan has been vehemently opposing the construction of the Kishanganga hydropower project. Pakistan believes that the diversion of waters of the Neelum is not allowed under the 1960 Indus waters treaty, and it will face a 27 per cent water deficit when the project gets completed in 2016.

The reduced water flow in the Neelum would not yield the required results of the proposed $1.6bn Neelum-Jehlum hydropower project that has been designed to generate 969 MW of electricity.

Pakistan believes Wullar barrage can be used as:
a) a geostrategic weapon -- a means to intimidate Pakistan
(b) potential to disrupt the triple canal project of Pakistan (upper Jhelum, upper Chenab, Lower Bari Doab canals)
(c) to badly affect the Neelum-Jehlum hydropower project
(d) to affect agriculture in Azad Kashmir
(e) would dry 5.6 million acres of land of Punjab’s cultivable land, in case Kishanganga water is blocked and the excess is diverted to Wuller barrage
(f) would result in loadshedding, if Pakistan does not get enough water to run its turbines
(g) would dry Mangla dam.