PAKISTAN’s dispute with India over sharing of waters from Chenab river is turning into a source of serious friction between the two countries.

On October 31, the foreign office spokesman said that a breakthrough on the dispute was expected “within a few days” as Pakistan had taken up the matter at the highest level. A few days earlier Indus Water Commissioner Jamaat Ali Shah had returned empty-handed from New Delhi where he unsuccessfully sought compensation for the losses Pakistan’s economy has suffered due to reduced flow of Chenab river water owing to reservoir filling work at the Baglihar dam.

No breakthrough occurred after “a few days.” In fact, nothing happened in the next three weeks until November 27 when India, at the highest level, flatly refused to commit if it would at all compensate Pakistan for the losses which amounted to 0.2 million acre feet of water. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had raised the issue during the peace process talks with his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee.

The initial one-time filling of a newly constructed reservoir is governed by specific provisions in the Indus Water Treaty under which the filling is to be carried out by mutual discussion, failing which India can proceed to do so subject to two conditions: the filling (in the case of projects on the Chenab) must be done during the period from June 21 to August 31 when monsoon is at its peak; and the flow in the Chenab Main above Marala headworks should not fall below 55,000 cusecs at any time. Pakistan says that these conditions have not been complied with. India claims it stopped the water from August 19 to August 28 while Pakistan maintains the stoppage was up to September 5.

In 1978, India had stopped water flow when it filled Salal Dam but later released the same amount of water as compensation from Sutlaj River. The water flow from Chenab River, which happens to be the lifeline for agriculture downstream of Marala headworks, drastically dropped in the months of September and October with India snatching away 200,000 cusecs of water at a time of the ripening of paddy crop. It damaged Kharif crops and may also create severe water scarcity for the autumn sowing of wheat. Over ten million acres of arable land has been affected in Sialkot, Gujranwala, Sheikhupura, Jhang and Faisalabad districts.

Jamaat Ali Shah, who inspected Baglihar dam site on October 18 and found defects in its design, painted a depressing picture of the water availability for irrigation at a seminar in Lahore on November 24. He said if India continued to block Pakistan’s due share of rivers water, then the country may become a barren land by 2014.

His Indian counterpart G. Ranganathan was in Pakistan last week for a return visit and inspected Marala headworks on November 30 for an on-site assessment of the water flow. During his talks with Jamaat Ali Shah in New Delhi in October he had provided hydrological data related to the outflow of water to counter the charge that India was blocking the river flow, claiming Pakistan’s water gauges were ‘faulty’. However, the fact remains that India released only 35,000 cusecs of water instead of 55,000 cusecs – a quantity of waters that existed before the dam work began and as agreed between the two sides.

Indus Basin Water Treaty between India and Pakistan was signed in September 1960 with the mediation of the World Bank. As per the agreement, waters of three western rivers of Indus, Jhelum and Chenab were to be used by Pakistan while India was given rights over eastern rivers of Ravi, Sutlej and Beas.

According to sub-paragraph 8(h) of the Treaty, India is permitted to construct an ‘incidental storage work’ on western rivers on its side only if the design was scrutinised and approved by Pakistan and that the storage capacity does not exceed 10,000 acres feet of water. In 1999, India began constructing the Baglihar dam on the Chenab River without taking Pakistan into confidence. During 1999-2004 India and Pakistan held several rounds of talks on the design of the project but could not reach an agreement. Then, on January 18, 2005, Pakistan took its case to the World Bank and presented six objections.

In April 2005 the WB determined Pakistani claim as a ‘Difference’ – a classification between less serious ‘Question’ and more serious ‘Dispute’ – and in May 2005 appointed Prof Raymond Lafitte, a Swiss civil engineer, to adjudicate the difference.

Lafitte gave his final verdict on February 12, 2007, in which he partially upheld some objections of Pakistan and asked India that pondage (small reservoir) capacity be reduced by 13.5 per cent, height of dam structure be reduced by 1.5 meter and power intake tunnels be raised by three meters. However he rejected Pakistani objections on height and gated control of the spillway saying these conformed to engineering norms of the day.

Ramaswamy R. Iyer, India’s former secretary for water resources who was involved in this case, gave a different explanation on October 31 for the reduction in flows. He says that in accordance with the project design, there are no low-level outlets in the reservoir. The treaty stipulates high-level outlets, and one of Pakistan’s objections was that they were not high enough.

The absence of low-level outlets, he says, means that as the reservoir is being filled, there can be no flow beyond the dam until the level of the outlets has been reached. It follows that for a short period the condition of a minimum flow of 55,000 cusec cannot be met. In a sense, he says, there is an internal contradiction in the treaty. If the condition of high placement of outlets is met, the minimum-flow condition cannot be met during the filling. Perhaps, Pakistan did not realise this consequence.

That the minimum flow could have been maintained from some other source is not a requirement under the treaty, for the simple reason that the possibility of reduced or no flows because of the absence of low-level outlets is not recognised by it. Such a possibility, Iyer says, ought to have been discussed in the Indus Commission. In fact, the best course for Pakistan would have been to have agreed at the Commission-level on the modalities of filling of the reservoir, as provided for in the treaty.

The capacity of the ‘pondage’ has been reduced on the arbitrator’s recommendations so as to take care of Pakistan’s concerns. But the right course would be to provide low-level outlets in it. Ramswamy R. Iyer is an opponent of the Indus treaty and argues it “was a negative, partitioning treaty, a coda to the portining of the land” and pleads for evolving a new relationship between the two countries on the Indus.

The Indus treaty is viewed by western experts as a model for peaceful resolution of water disputes in the world. But, according to Michael Klare, the problem is that it does not allow for the joint development of the Indus basin. It provides for separate development of the basin, with India receiving smaller share of the total water supply but retaining control of key tributaries. This means the Indians can, anytime in the future, impede the flow of water to Pakistan by arguing that they were denied an equitable share of the combined resources of the river water in the treaty and now they need more water for their economy and population.