India agrees to revive Indus Waters Commission level talks

LAHORE: India has agreed to revive Indus Waters Commission level talks for discussing water issues, saying the official delegation will participate in the meeting later this month in Lahore, an official said on Friday.

A senior official of Pakistan Indus Waters Commission told this scribe that India last month wrote a letter to convey its willingness for attending bilateral moot in Lahore in the second half of the month. The letter in this connection was sent by the Indian Indus Water commissioner to his Pakistani counterpart, asking to propose dates for the parleys, said the official.

India wanted to hold talks preferably around mid-March, the official further said and adding senior officials of both the countries are nowadays engaged in correspondence for finalising date, agenda and other modalities of the upcoming talks on the water issues. 

He added that India tried to defer these talks till mid-March, keeping in view the issues relating to its internal politics in a bid to avoid giving any impression during the ongoing states elections.

By showing willingness to resume activities of Permanent Indus Commission, India has virtually ended boycott of the negotiation process at Commissioner level after about one and half year of impasse, said the sources. The last meeting of the commission was held in 2015. India has also started exchanging water flow and agriculture use data with Pakistan, they added. 

A senior official said India shared crucial data of agriculture water usage of Western rivers to Pakistan in January this year. The sharing of such data is a routine but assumes immense importance as far as implementation of the Indus Waters Treaty is concerned, official said. 

The official said Pakistan did not want to discuss objections raised on the two Indian projects in the upcoming meeting of Indus Water Commission. As far as resumption of talks on contentious water issues is concerned, the official said only routine issues would be discussed. 

“We want to follow separate process under the supervision of the World Bank for negotiation on Kishanganga and Ratle hydropower projects,” he said. Last year, Pakistan submitted case for the establishment of court of arbitration for discussing objections to 330 megawatts-Kishanganga hydropower project and 850mw-Ratle hydropower projects, being built by India in sheer violation of the Indus Waters Treaty. 

The Official said the talks on both these controversial projects have not seen any tangible headway, saying that it was solely due to India’s stubbornness as it always avoided negotiated progress on objections raised by Pakistan at difference forums. 

In fact, he added, India had intentionally slowed down implementation of the Indus Waters Treaty.  No routine meetings of the commission are regularly held. The exchange of water data was also not being shared in letter and spirit as per stipulated period.  Moreover, he said, inspection of various water infrastructure was also suspended for the last several years. Even, mandatory inspection of Kishanganga has not taken place yet, he added.