SRINAGAR – Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to inaugurate theKishanganga Hydroelectric Project in Occupied Kashmir’s Gurez in the firstweek of May. The 330 MW power project, which has been contested for a longtime by Pakistan, was commissioned in stages over the past month.

The Kishanganga Hydroelectric Project is a run-of-the-river project thatincludes a 37-meter high concrete rock fill dam across the KishangangaRiver, located just before it flows across the Line of Control (LoC) intoAzad Kashmir. It diverts the water to an underground power house through a23.25 km tunnel.

The project will generate 1713 million units per annum, the NationalHydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) has said. The state of Jammu andKashmir would be provided with 12 percent of the power generated by theproject.

The project features three power generating units of 110 MW each, all ofwhich were successfully commissioned in the beginning of April. NHPC hassaid that all three units have been synchronised with the grid and theproject achieved full generation of its rated 330 MW capacity.

The hydel dam is located in the Gurez Valley of Bandipora district, northof Srinagar. It also lies to the north of Wular Lake, the site of anotherIndian project that Pakistan has attempted to stop.

Pakistan has for years tried to block the Kishanganga Project, using thepretext of the Indus Waters Treaty. It brought the World Bank into thedispute, since it was this body that had helped negotiate the treaty in1960. World Bank failed to bring the two neighbours on common ground.

Pakistan then took the matter to the International Court of Arbitration. Italleged that India did not have to right to construct any project thatwould divert water from the rivers in the Indus water system.

However, the International Court of Arbitration in February 2013 ruleddecisively affirming India’s right to divert the waters of the Kishanganga,as it is one of the ‘western rivers’ of the Indus system. The onlycondition that the ICA placed on India was that it should ensure a certainminimum flow in the Kishanganga to support the environment downstream.

Pakistan has complained that the Kishanganga Project affects its own NeelumJheelum Hydropower Plant. The Kishanganga is called the Jheelum on theother side of the LoC. Pakistan had written to the World Bank again lastmonth against the project, which had left even Pakistani media scratchingits head on the point of it.