India’s Claim To Pok Upheld By Ads

By Author: Danial Martin
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The Asian Development Bank appears to have finally woken to nefarious attempts to change the status of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir by giving Pakistan locus standi in waterworks intended to undercut Indian claims to the whole of Jammu and Kashmir under the Instrument of Accession. It has asked Pakistan to get a No Objection Certificate from India before it can release any funds for the construction of the Diamer-Bhasha dam.

The government is contemplating a plan-B to arrange funding for the $12 billion Diamer-Bhasha dam project through bilateral institutions after declining an Asian Development Bank suggestion that Pakistan should secure a no-objection certificate from India to seek multilateral funding for the project, reported DAWN.

The decision in principle was taken at a meeting presided over by Minister for Water and Power Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar and attended by representatives of the ministries of finance, water and power, and economic affairs, Wapda and the Planning Commission, an official told Dawn.

Wapda was asked to submit a status report along with details of its plan-B so that it could be discussed ...
... with the finance minister and the deputy chairman of Planning Commission in a meeting slated to review the overall financing problems being faced by water sector projects.

Wapda Chairman Shakil Durrani told the meeting that ADB had been supportive of the dam project all along in doing the paper work in line with its safeguard guidelines and on at least three occasions had committed to providing up to $4 billion.

Of late, however, it had started to show reluctance and desired that Pakistan should get an NoC from India for the project because it was located in a disputed territory. Mr Durrani told the meeting that the ADB’s request had been rejected.

According to sources, the United States had also discussed a lot of things and taken away data with an initial commitment to provide up to $1 billion in annual instalments of $200 million, but this had remained short of becoming a reality.

Dilating upon the plan-B, Mr Durrani said an option was to persuade the ADB to provide funding only for the civil works that would not relate to environmental and resettlement issues and meet the need for the remaining part of the project through local financing and other friendly sources.

The options included pledging some of the remaining water sector projects to raise Islamic and conventional bonds for the dam but most of these assets had already been pledged against international loans, an official said.

He said the Islamic Development Bank and China were ready to provide partial funding and support to the project but none of them was ready to fund the entire project.

The Economic Affairs Division told the meeting that a Middle Eastern group was also interested in the project because it offered more than 18 per cent rate of return on equity that meant 100 per cent recovery of investment in five years.

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