Unusual water releases into Ravi hamper work on Kartarpur Corridor

LAHORE: Pakistan has expressed concerns to India over unusual water releases into the River Ravi from an upstream dam, which is hampering the construction work of the Kartarpur Corridor being built to give visa-free access to Sikh devotees to their sacred shrine across the border.

Pakistan’s Commissioner for Indus Water Syed Mehr Ali Shah telephoned his Indian counterpart KP Saxena earlier this week to express concern over above-average flows in the River Ravi downstream of Madhopur Headworks into Pakistan. He asked Saxena to investigate the reason of the above-average inflows as the river water is obstructing the progress of Kartarput Corridor’s construction works going on in the Ravi riverbed.

Shah stressed that the possibility of reducing inflows into the River Ravi to reasonable limit be explored so that the construction activity may not be disturbed and the project may be completed as per stipulated time as agreed by the governments of Pakistan and India.

A formal letter by Pakistan’s commissioner for Indus waters has been dispatched to the Indian Indus waters commissioner, highlighting reservations of Pakistan over untimely releases of water into the River Ravi by India.

Sources informed that Saxena, in a telephonic conversation, admitted releasing water from Thein Dam into River Ravi with a view to maintaining level of reservoir relatively for absorbing potential flood water in the days to come. He explained the river flows were comparatively better this year, prompting authorities to release water from the dam.

The Frontier Works Organisation (FWO), which is constructing the Kartarpur Corridor, is facing difficulty in completing work due to gushing water into an active creek of the River Ravi. The Pakistan Army through a letter dated June 18, 2019 took up this issue with the Ministry of Water Resources, which was subsequently forwarded to the office of Pakistan’s Indus Waters Commission on June 24, 2019.

The controversy regarding water intentionally being released into Pakistan from eastern rivers has already gripped the Indian Punjab state where several quarters accused the authorities of letting water flow out of state while canals are not being run as per demand of local farmers. The chief minister of Indian Punjab also admitted water being allowed to flow into Pakistan through eastern rivers, saying that it was being done due to operational needs necessitating to control potential flooding.

The high-ups of the Pakistan Commission for Indus Waters are waiting for the official response of India over the issue. However, they feel that apparent excessive snowmelt in the catchment area could be one of the reasons for above-normal flows in the River Ravi from the Indian side. The water level of the Thein Dam, which is also called the Ranjit Sagar Dam project, was 511.58 meters on June 27, 2019 against the maximum capacity of storing water up to 527.90 meters.

It is worth-mentioning here that in August 2018, Indian Punjab Tourism Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu attended the inaugural ceremony of the Kartarpur Corridor. He was told by Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa about Pakistan's willingness to open the Dera Baba Nanak–Kartarpur Corridor on Guru Nanak’s 550th birth anniversary.

Construction work on the corridor started on the Pakistani side in December last after finalizing modalities with the Indian government. Prime Minister Imran Khan had laid the foundation stone of the corridor project at Kartarpur on November 28, 2018.

The Kartarpur Corridor is a proposed area corridor between the neighbouring nations of Pakistan and India, connecting the Sikh shrines of Dera Baba Nanak Sahib located in Indian Punjab and Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur in Punjab, Pakistan. Currently under planning, the corridor is intended to allow religious devotees from India to visit the Gurdwara in Kartarpur, 4.7 kilometres from the Pakistan-India border, without a visa. The construction of the corridor is expected to be completed by November 1, 2019, for the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak on November 12, 2019.