One can only hope that Lafitte’s ruling will induce sobriety. India has modified its Kishenganga project, following local objections to submergence and displacement in the Gurez Valley, substantially blunting Pakistan’s earlier objections. The project should now be actively pursued as also the Wullar Lake “barrage”. This envisages a flood detention mechanism to stagger the Wullar’s natural monsoon pondage through to improve navigation. The barrage will in fact serve to moderate the Jhelum flood, reduce its silt load and enhance energy output at the Uri dam in India and the Mangla dam in Pakistan.

With Baglihar behind us, India should boldly propose meaningful steps under the terms of Chapter VII of the Indus Treaty that enjoins “future cooperation” to optimise the Indus system’s potential in the “common interest”. Both countries are confronting the early effects of climate change, with glacier melt and aberrant weather, and need to insure against growing water stress and looming hydrological uncertainties. The 1960 treaty merely partitioned the waters of the Indus and left optimisation for future cooperation. That time has come.

Pakistan is running out of storage sites on the Indus main and has none (barring a modest Neelum Valley dam) on the Jhelum and Chenab, all of them “western rivers” allocated to it. The headwaters of all three rivers lie in the Indian part of J&K. At the same time, India has not been able to develop the 1.34 million acres of irrigation and 3.60 million acre feet of storage on the western rivers as provided for in the treaty for uses in J&K, including regulating flows to moderate floods. India too could better utilise the waters of the lower Ravi and some of its tributaries, as permitted, and improve drainage in Punjab, Haryana and Western Rajasthan in cooperation with Pakistan to mutual benefit.

... contd.