 | AFP
Sun Jan 16,12:25 AM ET
Indian Kashmir says 'dream plant' could ease power woes but Pakistan
objects
SRINAGAR, India (AFP) - Engineers in Indian Kashmir (news - web sites)
are working round the clock building an electricity plant that
officials say will ease the state's dire power shortage but which has
neighbouring Pakistan up in arms.
Pakistan, which fears the one-billion-dollar project could deprive its
wheat-bowl state of Punjab of a vital irrigation river, charges that
the plant violates a 44-year-old water sharing treaty.
But Indian Kashmir officials say the 450-megawatt Baglihar project on
the Chenab River in south Kashmir does not contravene the pact and
could go a long way to ending routine 12-hour blackouts plaguing the
Himalayan state.
"Given our disastrous power situation, the project will help end the
acute power deficiency," said Nayeem Akhter, secretary to Kashmir Chief
Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed.
The power shortages affect people most during the freezing winters.
With no electric heat, people spend the chill nights huddling around
stoves or clutching kangris -- pots for carrying hot charcoal -- inside
their clothes.
"Before I die, I want to see a day in my life when there is no power
cut," retired businessman Abdul Razak, 78, said in Srinagar, Kashmir's
main city.
Pakistan says it never approved the project's design as stipulated
under the Indus Water Treaty and has threatened to go to the World Bank
(news - web sites) which brokered the agreement to block the project.
The row comes as the two countries which have fought three wars -- two
over Kashmir -- inch forward in a bid to settle their differences over
all issues including the disputed region, which each holds in part but
claims in full.
The treaty bars India from interfering with the flow of the three
rivers feeding Pakistan -- the Indus, the Chenab and the Jhelum -- but
allows it to generate electricity from them.
The treaty is one of the nuclear-armed South Asian rivals' most
enduring agreements and has survived two wars between them.
Kashmiri power authorities insist the project, on which work began in
April 1999 and is due to be completed next year, will not store water,
thus cutting off the flow to Pakistan.
"We're complying with the treaty religiously," said Kashmir's
Irrigation Minister Qazi Mohammed Afzal. "There have been no violations
at all."
Engineers in construction helmets are working 24-hours-a-day on the
project, cutting through massive Himalayan rock formations and using
ropeways to get to hard-to-reach parts of the site on the banks of the
fast-flowing Chenab.
"It's a dream project that will become a main source of power," said
Abdul Aziz, a senior project engineer. He said the addition of 450
megawatts of power would reduce load-shedding -- the cutting off of
power to certain lines when demand is greater than supply -- by 20 to
25 percent.
The government plans to start work on a second 450-megawatt phase once
the first stage is completed.
Kashmir government officials fear halting the project will not only
keep the state in the dark but will also spell big financial
difficulties for the state.
The Jammu and Kashmir state government has taken loans from nine
financial institutions to fund the project.
"If Pakistan believes it's a friend of Kashmiris, it should not
jeopardise this project," state Finance Minister Muzaffar Beig said,
adding that it is vital for the region's economic development.
Kashmir has the potential to generate 20,000 megawatts of power, but
less than 10 percent of it has been exploited. Massive power theft has
compounded the state's woes with people refusing to pay power bills.
India has said it believes the dispute can be resolved with more talks
but Pakistan has refused and says it wants to consult neutral
arbitrators.
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