Jhelum water inflow declines alarmingly

ISLAMABAD: After 52 years, Pakistan has experienced mammoth reduction in the Jhelum water inflows from 8,000 cusecs to 1,900 cusecs on Sunday (Feb19) but on Monday it slightly scaled up to 2,000 cusecs, raising the eyebrows of many in the country as all other rivers have normal flows.

However, a senior official of Pakistan’s Permanent Commission of Indus Waters (PCIW) attributed the decline in water inflows in Jhelum River to less rainfall, below average snowfall and low temperatures in the catchment area which is situated in Indian Held Kashmir.

Asked if India is in process of filling the reservoir of the just-completed Kishenganga hydropower project, he said that it depends upon the rise in temperature in the catchment area and the water flows are not gaining the momentum at the moment. However, water experts apprehended that the massive dip in water inflows may be the result of filling of Kishenganga Dam by Indians as other rivers have normal flows. IRSA spokesman Khalid Idrees Rana said that historically water flows in Jhelum river stay at 7,000-8,000 cusecs per day in these days, but now they have dropped down to an alarmingly level of just 2,000 cusecs.

However, the data shows during peak winter season water flows hovered in the range of 7,000-8,000 cusecs and specifically on December 26, 2017, the water flows stayed at 7,900 cusecs, but in January 2018, the flows dropped massively to be in the range of 4600 to 4,000 cusecs. By mid- February, when spring season starts approaches, the water flows drastically went down raising many a eyebrows. This means that India had started the process of filling of dam from January, 2018.

However, PCIW is totally unaware of the filling of the dam by India as it has failed to get information of any existing and future projects being erected on Pakistan’s rivers in the last four years particularly after Pakistan going to World Bank asking for the constitution of the court of arbitration (CoA) on the designs of Kishenganga and Ratle hydropower projects. The World Bank has failed to constitute the court of arbitration on account of India’s opposition as New Delhi is insisting that the matter should be resolved at the forum of Neutral Expert. Since then, Modi government is keeping Pakistan in the dark about the design of the future projects on eastern rivers. So Pakistan is not in a position to verify if India is filling the Kishenganga Dam.