SRINAGAR: A top Jammu and Kashmir Government official has dismissed media reports that India could have to scrap construction of the controversial Baghliar dam if World Bank-mandated changes to its design are enforced. "The reports are premature and ill-informed," Shailendra Kumar, Managing Director of the Jammu and Kashmir Power Development Corporation, told The Hindu .

Reports that appeared last week in both Pakistani and Indian newspapers said a draft determination made by World Bank-appointed neutral expert, Raymond Lafitte, had called for significant changes to the dam's design, including a reduction of its height by 1.5 metres, changes to its spillway structure, and the construction of an embankment. According to the reports, the changes would make the dam economically unviable.

"A large amount of the construction work on the dam still lies ahead," Mr. Kumar said, "which gives us the time and opportunity to find engineering solutions to whatever changes might be called for." Moreover, Mr. Kumar said, the changes suggested by the expert are draft proposals for consideration by both India and Pakistan, and not final findings which must be complied with.

Both countries are thought to have taken exception to parts of Dr. Lafitte's draft findings, and are preparing objections he will consider before issuing his final findings in February 2007. Pakistan is believed to have objected to Dr. Lafitte's determination that the dam's construction does not in principle violate the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty. India, for its part, has taken issue with elements of his draft design changes.

Soon after it received the designs of the dam from India in 1992, Pakistan argued that the project's water storage capacities exceeded the stipulations of the IWT.

It also claimed that the dam did not need gated spillways, which allow water to be stored. Pakistan fears that the dam, like others now under construction in Jammu and Kashmir, could be used by India to choke off water supplies at times of crisis.

Pak. moves World Bank

After several rounds of negotiations between the Indus Waters Commissioners of the two countries failed to yield results, Pakistan invoked its treaty rights and moved the World Bank for the appointment of an independent expert in 2005. Since then, the fate of the Rs. 4,200 crore project, which has suffered repeated delays because of engineering problems and financial issues, has been in question.

Scheduled for completion next summer, the Baghliar dam is part of a string of ambitious Himalayan high dams Jammu and Kashmir believes are essential to meeting its power needs. Politicians in Jammu and Kashmir have often called for the abrogation of the IWT.

"India and Pakistan should let us build the dams we need or compensate us for our losses," said Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Mohammad Yusuf Tarigami.

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