The Musharraf government wasted three years to take the most crucial issue of Baglihar dam to the international arbitration at an appropriate stage, or include it in the composite dialogue, and weakened Pakistan's legal position, Pakistan's Indus Water Commission sources told Business Recorder.
They said that after failure of talks with India, the Commission had requested the previous government, in 2002, to take the issue of Baglihar dam to neutral experts under the 1960 Indus Water Treaty between the two countries, but the Musharraf government delayed the move by at least three years, which enabled India to complete most of the construction work.
They said that though India had been working on the project since 1992, in violation of the IWT, the government of Pakistan finally decided to place its case before World Bank neutral expert, Professor Raymond Lafitte, on January 7, 2005 for resolution of the differences with India. "Since the project was at an advanced stage, the neutral expert had to take notice of the ground realities," they added.
It may be added that under the Indus Treaty, Pakistan has exclusive rights over River Chenab waters along with the flow from Jhelum and Indus. Thus, Pakistan's position is that India should not construct any structure on rivers apportioned to Pakistan which in any way obstructs the run-of-the-river.
Pakistan raised objections to the design, height, storage capacity and gates of the spillway structure of the Baglihar power plant as, with this design, India would get control over the Chenab river water flows downstream to Pakistan.
Sources said that knowing that India had invested billions of rupees till 2005, and it would not abandon the project, or change its design at any cost, Pakistan's Foreign Office was still under the illusion that Pakistan's case was very strong, and there was no technical flaw in its legal position.
Sources said that India has already proved beyond any doubt that it would use Baglihar dam and River Chenab water for political leverage against Pakistan in future as it did during September 2008 and caused 15 to 20 percent damage to its lifeline crops--rice, cotton and sugarcane.
Analysts say that Pakistan's failure to stop India from building dams on its rivers, emanating from Kashmir, has brought home to Pakistanis not only the shortcomings of the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty but also the consequences to the whole agricultural sector of the country as the dam has become operational.
According to initial estimates of Punjab government, India caused a loss of Rs 5 billion to Pakistan by illegally blocking more than 200,000 cusecs Chenab river water in the Baglihar dam in Occupied Kashmir in September, 2008 that was much needed for irrigating the near-maturity rice, cotton and sugarcane crops.
Though President Asif Ali Zardari stated last month that he would write a letter to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to solve the water issue and pay compensation to Pakistan, yet he has not written this letter so far.