Hydrological warfare against Pakistan
- From: PakistanPal <pakistanpal@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2008 00:48:33 -0700 (PDT)
Prof Khurram Shahzad
“Water wars are not inevitable. It lies in our hands – and in our
minds.”
It has been a venerable and established speculation among political
experts that the world’s future wars will be fought over water, not
oil. Where the whole world is fortunately lagging a bit behind for
entering into this ill-fated era of ‘hydrological warfare’, it clearly
seems that the subcontinent has perhaps surpassed the rest of the
world with Indian courtesy. Now it has expediently forced again the
region to slip into a new kind of fracas. Experts say it would be the
era… in which rivers, lakes and aquifers become national security
assets to be fought over, or controlled through surrogate armies and
client states.
At its eastern border India has started decanting the rivers
irrigating the Bangladeshi plains and deltas. India devices to divert
huge quantities of water from major rivers, including the Ganges and
Brahmaputra, blocking that water from reaching Bangladesh where it is
essential for the rice crop, upon which 80 per cent of the farmers
depend for survival (also mark the current global rice shortage). It
will also lead to the drying out of the Sunderbans and consequent
destruction of all its rich biodiversity. This water aggression has
left the country of rivers with no option but to seek UN intervention
and creation of international water laws to avert this catastrophe it
may face in the coming future.
Coming to West, Pakistan has become the victim of Indian hydrological
warfare to arrogate its rivers. The construction of Uri Todiam dam on
river Poonch and Kishan Ganga dam on river Neelum, two tributaries of
river Jhelum, are about to hit its final stage. Many other small hydel
projects had also been accomplished while paper work has been on track
for construction of five more dams; most of them are to be erected on
the Pakistani rivers. The work pace on several of these projects
prognosticate their completion by 2012 and at that very instant India
will be in a position to close down both of these rivers upon its
will. Consequently the closure of these rivers would play havoc with
Pakistan ’s agriculture and industry. Further more the inhabitants of
these areas inside Pakistan will have to spar the drinking water
paucity.
India has also commenced the building of major dam at Kargil on river
Sindh and it has disbursed $200 billion for this purpose. The scenario
for Pakistan gets grimmer with further construction of 12 dams on
tributaries of river Indus (Sindh). India was using water of Indus
River through a tunnel since long, which also amounts to major water
aggression. Interestingly it has persuaded Afghanistan to originate a
water reservoir on the River Kabul, another tributary river of the
Indus.
Afghanistan at present utilizes just a fraction of Kabul waters to
irrigate about 12,000 acres of land. It plans to construct a dam on
the Kabul River and set up the Kama Hydroelectric Project to utilize
0.5 MAF water to irrigate additional 14,000 acres. In connivance with
Jewish lobby India has been maneuvering in war-ravaged Afghanistan
where about known 4,000 plus technical workers have been deployed in
the name of reconstruction. This employs the well-established notion
that it has been committing a silent strategic water offence against
Pakistan not only from inside but from its other neighboring
countries.
The Indian water belligerence started when despite signing the 1960
Indus Waters Treaty, it invited a bid for the development of a barrage
namely Tulbul Navigational Project in 1985. The barrage was to be
constructed on the River Jhelum, below the Wullar Lake near Sopore, 25
km north of Srinagar .
For Pakistan , the geo-strategic significance of the site lies in the
fact that its protectorate endows India with the means to browbeat
Pakistan . A dam on that site has the prospective to devastate the
intact system of the triple canal project within Pakistan namely, the
Upper Jhelum Canal , Upper Chenab Canal and the Lower Bari Doab
Canal .
While India started work on the Wullar Barrage initially, Kashmiri
freedom fighters launched their operations that wrecked the machinery
and the under-construction dam, which led to India calling off work on
the dam and was subsequently resumed at a later stage. It seems that
the construction work pertaining to the Wullar Barrage has entered a
decisive phase. After this, the Indian government brushed aside five
main objections raised by Pakistan related to the construction of the
Baglihar Dam and commenced construction work. The construction of this
controversial project violated not only the Indus Water Treaty but
robbed Pakistan of its precious Chenab water. New Delhi also opposed
any alteration in the design as recommended by its neighbor.
Pakistanis believe that the height of the dam at 470 feet is
disproportionate and will create a reservoir in excess of the power
generation needs.
The new reservoir potentially could block the flow of the river for a
period of 26-28 days during the low season (January-February). It is
also contended that a drop of 7,000 cubic feet per second per day in
the river’s flow to Pakistan will come to pass during this period. The
Baglihar Dam together with Dul Hasti and other dams can plainly
diminish the flow of Chenab during the vital Rabi crop-sowing season
(January and February). The dried crop could spell a disaster to
Pakistan ’s agricultural economy. It has feared that India might also
be diverting water to some canals near Akhnor in Kashmir and storing
the water in the Salal Dam in Jammu .
In this series of water robberies of its own kind, next comes the
Kishan Ganga project on the Neelum River . It enters Azad Kashmir from
the occupied Kashmir at a distance of about 200 kilometers east of
Muzaffarabad and travels in a general westward direction. Near
Muzaffarabad, the river turns sharply towards south and joins the
Jhelum River . This location has been the focus of studies for past
three decades for development of power potential of the Neelum River
for Pakistan .
A 963 MW hydropower can be developed if the Neelum and the Jhelum
rivers were interlinked by constructing a 32 kilometers long tunnel.
Blueprints and technical stipulations were finalized in 1997 and WAPDA
selected this project in 2001 for execution under its Vision 2025. But
again knowing the fact that Pakistan has been contemplating a dam on
this site, India also started pursuing a plan to divert the Neelum
water for its own hydropower generation.
With the apprehension that the Indian plan may ultimately reduce the
Neelum water flowing into Azad Kashmir , Pakistan now intends to
expedite the implementation of the Neelum-Jhelum Hydro Power (NJHP).
By completing the NJHP before the Indian diversion plan, it is hoped
India and the international community can be persuaded to accept
Pakistan ‘s historic right on the unexpurgated water of the Neelum as
offered in the Indus Basin Water Treaty.
With all these hydro-atrocities India is double-dealing by alluring
Pakistan in discussion and recommencing with the construction of these
dams in tandem. India ’s scheme is to sway the Kashmiris that by
persistently juxtaposing the building of dams in Kashmir , the
Pakistani government was negating their right to progress, which is
totally falsification of the facts.
How can the world move towards a future of cooperation rather than
conflict on water? One believes that there must be implied some rules
internationally to avoid the water conflicts.
Countries must avoid unilateralism in building water reservoirs. Any
major upstream alteration to a river system, or increase in use of
shared groundwater, should be negotiated, not imposed as in case of
Indian water aggression on its neighbors.
Governments in the subcontinent should look beyond national borders to
basin-wide cooperation. Building strong river-basin institutions could
provide a framework for identifying and exploiting opportunities for
cooperation.
In transnational water disputes, upstream nation is more powerful than
the downstream and therefore more cavalier about taking into account
downstream needs? That’s exactly what the situation is in the
subcontinent. One must also realize the fact that two countries of the
region are nuclear capable. And one of them is being kept water
stressed by the other. This invites the attention of the keepers of
the world to ponder over the situation. COURTESY PAKISTAN OBSERVER.
.
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