India closes one more dam gate
NEW DELHI:India’s defence secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh and NSA Ajit Doval met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, following reports of a blackout drill in Ferozepur Cantonment — an exercise typically reserved for wartime preparedness.
On the Line of Control (LoC), Pakistan has carried out 37 ceasefire violations in the past 12 days, predominantly at night. “During the night of May 4–5, Pakistan Army posts fired small arms unprovoked across the LoC at Kupwara, Baramulla, Poonch, Rajouri, Mendhar, Naushera, Sunderbani, and Akhnoor,” said an Indian Army spokesperson in Jammu. India responded “promptly and proportionately,” he added.
Meanwhile, after Baglihar, India has restricted the flow of water through Salal Dam, another run-of-the-river hydropower project on the Chenab River located in Jammu and Kashmir’s Reasi district, after taking steps to boost their reservoir holding capacity. The Kishanganga dam located in the Kashmir Valley’s northern Bandipore district is likely to be the next whose gates may be closed soon to stop the water flow to the neighbouring country, the sources here said. The dam diverts water from the Kishanganga River (called Neelam by Pakistan) to a run-of-the-river Hydroelectric Project with an installed capacity of 330 MW in the Jhelum River Basin.
The dam volume of Baglihar located in J&K’s Ramban district is 18 lakh metres or 63, 566,400 cubic feet and its height and length are 143 metres (469 feet) and 317 metres (1,040 feet), respectively. Salal with a dam volume of 1450,000 metres (51,210,000 cubic feet) is 113 metre (370.7 feet) high and 487 metre (1,597.8 feet) long.
All the three dams offer India the ability to regulate the timing of water release. The waterflow from Baglihar reservoir was stopped early Sunday after all its gates were closed. However, the waterflow from Salal dam has only been reduced. Pictures showing people walking through the Chenab at Akhnoor, a town 28-km away from Jammu city, as the water level has been considerably reduced there and also in Jourian area which is just 13-km short of the Line of Control (LoC) have gone viral.
According to Pakistan’s Indus River System Authority (IRSA), Chenab River discharge at Marala Headworks fell from 23,980 cubic feet per second (cusecs) on April 20 to 16,087 cusecs on April 25 upstream, and from 17,480 to 8,087 cusecs downstream. IRSA warned that the reduced flow could cause a 21 per cent shortfall in the early Kharif season, threatening Pakistan’s agricultural output and food supply chains.
Amid growing security concerns, many international carriers have avoided Pakistan airspace, further denting its revenue. Credit rating agency Moody’s cautioned that any escalation of conflict could derail Pakistan’s economy by undermining external funding and depleting foreign exchange reserves, whereas India’s economy is expected to remain resilient despite higher defence outlays.
Observers note a pattern of the Pakistan Army positioning its weapons in and around civilian areas along the LoC, a tactic analysts say is intended to deter Indian retaliation by risking civilian casualties.
