Talks on Tulbul project in Islamabad on June 22-23

New Delhi, June 15: The talks between India and Pakistan on the Tulbul navigation project will be held in Islamabad on June 22-23, it was announced today.

Water Resources Secretary J Hari Narayan will lead the Indian delegation at the talks, a spokesman of the External Affairs Ministry said.

India and Pakistan will also hold talks on Health and Information Technology, in New Delhi on June 20 and 21 respectively.

The last round of talks on the Tulbul project, held in June 2005, had remained inconclusive.

India is insisting on revival of work on the project, suspended in 1987. The project was conceived in the 1980s and work began in 1984.

It was stopped midway in 1987 after Islamabad raised objections.

The Jhelum, which flows through the Kashmir valley, provides an important means of transportation of goods and movement of people.

To sustain navigation throughout the year, it is considered necessary to maintain a minimum depth of water, which will permit movement of boats.

The Tulbul project is a "navigation lock-cum-control structure" at the mouth of the Wullar Lake in Jammu and Kashmir. It envisages regulated water release from the natural storage in the lake to maintain a minimum draught of 4.5 feet in the river up to Baramulla during the lean winter months.

This is to ensure round-the-year navigation from Anantnag to Srinagar to Baramulla, a distance of over 20 km.

India holds that this is permissible under the Indus Water Treaty, while Pakistan maintains that the project is a violation of the treaty.

India says suspension of work is harming the interests of people of Jammu and Kashmir and also depriving people of Pakistan of irrigation and power benefits that may accrue from regulated water releases.

UNI