India now plans desilt all hydro power projects on rivers flowing to Pakistan, to be done once a month
New Delhi: With the Indus Water Treaty in abeyance, India now plans to regularly flush out the waters at all hydropower projects in Jammu and Kashmir built on rivers flowing through to Pakistan, three people in the know of the developments said, as New Delhi continues to tighten the screws on Islamabad.
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The plan is to carry out flushing or desilting that requires releasing a large volume of water from a reservoir to clear accumulated sediments, at least once a month during the monsoon season, said the three people aware of the matter.
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This was not happening earlier on a regular basis because of the restriction placed by the Indus Water Treaty between India and Pakistan. With India now holding the treaty in abeyance following the 22 April terror attack in Pahalgam, New Delhi plans to conduct such exercises, as and when required according to operational necessity—without giving Pakistan any advance notice or sharing data with it.
Jammu and Kashmir is home to about 20 hydropower projects with an installed generation capacity of 3.5GW that can power three million households. As part of the new playbook, desilting has been done at three large projects on the Indus basin—Salal, Kishanganga and Baglihar—which fall under the purview of the treaty in the past two weeks.
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It is estimated that average annual runoff of the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab is 136 million acre feet (maf), of which 40% (around 54 maf) comes from the Indian side.
"Flushing will be a regular affair now as and when it is technically required, most likely once every month during the monsoon season. It will be done across all projects," said one of the three people mentioned above.
India was required to get approval from Pakistan to carry out flushing— though this is a normal activity—as the downstream regions are in that country. In cases like Salal, flushing had not been carried out for several years due to objections from Pakistan, said another person, adding that flushing is important for the hydro projects to operate efficiently.
"With the pressure of water flow remaining high in the Monsoon season, it is easier to carry out the operation during this period. These projects do not have large water holding capacity as this was not permitted under IWT. Post flushing the operational storage would somewhat increase," said a third person.
According to former National Hydroelectric Power Corp. (NHPC) managing director Abhay Kumar Singh, apart from helping in efficient operations of hydro projects and increasing the water holding capacity, flushing would also provide a strategic edge to India as Pakistan would be concerned about a sudden flow of water and silt.
"Flushing is very much required for these projects now. The non-requirement of informing Pakistan of the water releasing, holding or flushing activity would always keep them concerned and alert. This gives India a strategic upper hand. So far, although the land is ours, water is ours, the dam is ours, Pakistan used to have the major say but with the treaty now in abeyance India can take decisions on its own for its own benefit," Singh said.
The development also comes at a time when India is also looking to speed up hydropower projects on rivers flowing into Pakistan after it suspended the Indus Water Treaty, two of the three people mentioned above said. The Centre is also exploring the possibility of building new projects on the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab rivers, and their tributaries.
The Indus Water Treaty, which was signed in 1960 through the mediation of the World Bank for sharing of river waters between India and Pakistan, was suspended by India following the killing of 26 people by terrorists in Kashmir's Pahalgam on 22 April.
Queries mailed to the union ministries of power, Jal Shakti and external affairs, and NHPC remained unanswered till press time.
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