In April 2019, the Danish Hydraulic Institute, an independent consultant, carried out a study for the Jammu and Kashmir State Power Corporation and they came out with a mind-numbing figure: $386 million per year is the loss to the territory because of delays in various hydroelectric projects over decades.
Those delays were courtesy Pakistan, that saw leverage in the terms and provisions of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), leverage that would enable it to raise objections to hydroelectric projects in Kashmir, refer them to the Neutral Expert set up to resolve such disputes, and ensure projects in India never got off the ground.
“Today, that loss totals almost Rs 4.8 billion (480 crore) for each year,” said Devendra Sharma, a specialist on water resources including Indus waters and member of the National Security Advisory Board.
India spent massive amounts of money surveying the three western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab) allocated to Pakistan under the Indus Waters Treaty but over which it was allowed to build “run-of-the-river” projects to generate electricity.
Sharma noted that Islamabad did not want India to benefit in any way from the waters of the western rivers, even when these did not cost Pakistan anything. So since the treaty came into force in the 1960s to 2025, when India declared it “in abeyance” after the Pahalgam terror attack, Indian projects did not take off or had to function below par.
India was also allowed to use some waters from the western rivers for irrrigation, but as Sharma pointed out, “The cultivable area in Jammu and Kashmir is 17,519 sq km. Out of this, irrigated area is 6,318 sq km. You can imagine, 65 years after the treaty, we have 11,273 sq. km of area in Jammu and Kashmir which could not be irrigated.”
There was a provision in the treaty that India could draw water, build some storage. But for everything India had to go to Pakistan, take their approval, clearances, as per the treaty. And if India did anything they didn’t like, they would go for arbitration which would take seven to eight years to resolve.
“Then they would approach other channels. Delays upon delays and then our cost, as I earlier mentioned, cost also increases manifold,” Sharma underscored.
The Tulbul Navigation Project (Wullar Barrage), conceived by India in 1980, was to regulate water flow in the Jhelum during the winter months and ensure sufficient depth for inland water transport.
Work on it began in 1984 but was halted in 1987 following Pakistani complaints that it violated storage restrictions of the IWT. India has now resumed work on it. Pakistan even objected to melting snow in Ladakh being chanelled through small constructions to irrigate fields.
Why would any government allow itself to be tied down in this manner is inexplicable, but it holds lessons for every Indian government.
