A Pakistani official, however, cautioned against describing the agreement as a breakthrough and said India was bound by the water agreement to allow such inspection.
India on Friday agreed to allow Pakistan to inspect the two under-construction hydropower plants on the Indus River in Jammu & Kashmir to allay Islamabad’s concerns over their designs, indicating that bilateral talks under the Indus Waters Treaty are making gradual progress.
According to Pakistani media reports, during the periodic talks between the Indus Water Commissioners of the two countries in May, Pakistan had demanded that its officials be allowed to visit the sites of Nimmo Bazgo and Chutak hydropower plants and both countries had agreed to discuss the matter in July. The visit is expected to take place next month.
A Pakistani official, however, cautioned against describing the agreement as a breakthrough and said India was bound by the water agreement to allow such inspection. “There is nothing unusual about it,” he said after the conclusion of the two-day talks. But he agreed that there had been some progress in certain areas, which would help bridge the trust gap on India’s water projects on Pakistani rivers.
The two sides also agreed to jointly inspect the flood embankments on the Ravi on both sides of the border. On the first day of the talks, the two sides had agreed in principle to put in place a telemetry system on the western rivers to record and transfer real-time data.
The agreement was reached after Indian delegates had conceded to the usefulness of the telemetry system in removing the confusion over water flows into Pakistan. The officials also discussed the quality of water being released by India. Pakistan had raised the issue of inflows of polluted water from India in detail and asked the Indian officials to take effective measures to stop contamination of the waters of the Hadiara and Kasur drains and the Jhelum river. Pakistan firmly believes that the polluted water has been flowing from the Indian side.
India agreed to a joint inspection of the polluted water under Indus Water Commission.
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