Baglihar power project to start partial operations by next June

Srinagar: The controversial Baglihar hydroelectric project will start partial operations by next June, supplying much needed power, Indian occupied Kashmir's chief minister said. Pakistan has said it fears the one-billion-dollar project could deprive its wheat-bowl state of Punjab of vital irrigation water.

It says the dam violates a decades-old water sharing treaty brokered by the World Bank. But India says the Baglihar hydroelectric project on the Chenab River does not violate the pact and could go a long way to ending routine 12-hour blackouts plaguing the Indian held-state. 'The first phase of the 450-megawatt Baglihar Hydel power project will become operational by June, 2008,' Chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said late Sunday.

'The pace of work on the project had slowed, meaning the target date for completion was missed,' Azad said, referring to objections raised by Pakistan. The second phase would be completed in the 'near future.'

The project will 'considerably improve' the power position in the region, he said, giving no details on how much electricity would be generated by the initial start-up. The work on the project began in April 1999.

Kashmir has the potential to generate 20,000 megawatts of power, but less than 10 percent of it has been exploited. Massive power theft has compounded the state's electricity woes with people refusing to pay power bills.

An expert appointed by the World Bank ruled earlier this year that the dam India is building in the occupied Kashmir region did not violate the water-sharing treaty with Pakistan.