India and Pakistan recently concluded the annual talks at the Permanent Commission of Indus Water (1-4 June), the first such meeting between India and Pakistan after the Mumbai terror attacks. The sharing of river waters has emerged in recent months as a major irritant in bilateral relations, which were gravely soured by the Mumbai attacks.

After four days of grueling parleys, the talks were largely a failure with both sides being unable to reach an agreement, on the Chenab’s water flow and the Kishanganga Power Project. As the talks ended, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon suggested that "Pakistan has assumed that India has held back water. But we have told them that this assumption is not correct as flow of (Chenab) water last year was low anyway." Meanwhile, a Water Resources Ministry official said that the "[d]ispute still persists on the demand of compensation by Pakistan."

What implications does this meeting hold for India and Pakistan’s ongoing water disputes, if any? What were the decisions taken with regard to the Kishanganga Power Project? Most importantly, were the two countries able to decide on the way forward?

For the 2009 Indus Water Commission, Syed Jamaat Ali Shah led the Pakistani delegation to the meeting while G Aranganathan led the Indian side. The meeting discussed 14 agenda items including the use of modern technology for sharing river water data, the contentious Kishanganga dam project and other water-sharing issues.

There was disagreement on issues like Baglihar, Kishanganga and Uri-II dams. Pakistan has been demanding compensation for the choking of water supply of the Chenab River by New Delhi to fill the newly constructed Baglihar Dam in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Pakistan has claimed that it suffered crop losses because of reduced water flow and demanded compensation. India has rejected the charge. In 2005, Pakistan had sought the World Bank's intervention to stop the construction of the Baglihar dam and the hydroelectricity power project. The project was, however, cleared by the Bank but India was asked to restrict the overall height of the dam.

Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesman, Abdul Basit, recently said Pakistan was considering various options, including the appointment of a neutral expert or arbitrator by the World Bank, to resolve differences with India on the sharing of river waters and the Kishanganga hydro-power project.
Under the Indus Water Treaty, Pakistan has to receive 55,000 cusecs of water, but authorities there complain that this year Pakistan's share was drastically reduced, causing damage to crops. They claim that Pakistan only received around 13,000 cusecs during the winter and a maximum of 29,000 cusecs during the summer. This averages around 22,000 to 25,000 cusecs - less than half of Pakistan's share.

On the first day of the meeting, different year-long activities of the Commission from 1 April 2008 to 31 March 2009 were reviewed and a report was submitted to the Governments of Pakistan and India on 1 June. Meteorological data and weather forecasts were discussed. Representatives from the Water Resources and Power Development Authority and technical experts were part of the Pakistan delegation. Pakistan also raised the issue of India building the Nimo Bazgo hydel power project on the Indus in Ladakh. This project is a part of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s reconstruction package with an amount of Rs. 3.83 billion earmarked for the construction.

Even though the countries were unable to reach an agreement on the major irritants an agenda for future cooperation was created. Both the countries decided to strengthen the Permanent Indus Water Commission by incorporating a clause to include issues like climate change, global warming and melting of glaciers in its ambit and cooperate on issues beyond the parameters of the Indus Water Treaty. India agreed to provide flood data to Pakistan between 1 July and 10 October on a daily basis. It was also suggested at the meeting to use the telemetric data-sharing system via satellites enabling automatic data transfer right from the dams. Shah said that future cooperation would include addressing the problems of sedimentation of rivers as well as global warming and studying climate change effects on the Indus river system.