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Agence France-Presse

Several hundred metres underground, thousands of labourers grind away day and night on a huge hydroelectric project in contested Kashmir, where India and Pakistan are racing to tap the subcontinent’s diminishing freshwater supplies.
The arch rivals have been building duelling power plants along the banks of the turquoise Neelam River for years.
The projects on opposite sides of The Line of Control – the de facto border in Kashmir – are nearly finished, fuelling tensions between the neighbours with Pakistan particularly worried its downstream project will be deprived of much-needed water by India.

The Himalayan region of Kashmir is at the heart of a 70-year conflict between the nuclear-armed foes, with both sides laying claim to the troubled territory.
The rivalry on the Neelam is underlined by both countries’ unquenchable need for freshwater, as their surging populations and developing economies continue to stress already diminished waters tables.
This situation represents a serious challenge to Pakistan’s food security and long-term growth, its central bank recently warned in a report.
The geography of the wider region only exacerbates the problem.


The Indus River – into which the waters of the Neelam ultimately flow – is one of the longest on the continent, cutting through ultra-sensitive borders in the region.
It rises in Tibet, crosses Kashmir and waters 65 per cent of Pakistan’s territory, including the vast, fertile plains of Punjab province – the country’s bread basket – before flowing into the Indian Ocean.
The Indus Water Treaty, painfully ratified in 1960 under the auspices of the World Bank, theoretically regulates water allocation between the countries and is considered a rare diplomatic success story amid a bitter history.
It provides India with access to three eastern rivers (the Beas, Ravi and Sutlej) and Pakistan with three in the west (the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum), while setting the conditions for water usage.
As a tributary of the Jhelum River, the Neelam theoretically falls into Pakistan’s sphere, which launched the Neelum-Jhelum power plant project a quarter of a century ago to counter the legal, but competing Kishanganga project in Indian Kashmir.

At the confluence of the Neelam and Jhelum, the gigantic underground cathedral of concrete and steel is near completion – the four generators are in place, waiting for the transformers and the network to be connected.
More than 6,000 Pakistani and Chinese workers busy themselves in the 28km of underground tunnels or in the power station itself, buried under 400 metres of rock in the heart of the Himalayas.
After completion, the dam is expected to churn out 969 MW of electricity by mid-2018.
“It is a fantastic feeling to see the outcome of such a historic project,” enthused Arif Shah, an engineer working on the site for eight years.

“We hope to finish our hydroelectric plant before the Indians,” he smiles, while acknowledging that the real pressure comes from Islamabad, which has promised to end the debilitating power cuts nationwide before the 2018 elections.
On the Indian side, the Kishanganga power station is also in its final phase, but has delayed its late 2017 completion date, according to an official, in part because of ongoing unrest in the Kashmir valley.
Pakistan has filed cases at the World Bank against India and the Neelam dam, which it says will unfairly restrict the amount of water heading downstream.

According to the plant’s director Nayyar Aluddin, the production of electricity could shrink by 10-13 per cent because of the Indian project.
But the hydroelectric projects on the Neelam River are not the only points of friction between the two countries as the Indus Treaty faces increasingly pressing disputes.
Beyond the technical bickering, Islamabad is especially afraid of India cutting into its precious water supplies during strategic agricultural seasons that are key to feeding the country’s 207 million residents.
The possibility of hitting Pakistan’s food supply is regularly brought up by both Indian and Pakistani media, stretching perennially taut relations.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi hinted at such reprisals following an attack in Indian Kashmir blamed on Pakistani insurgents in September 2016.

“Blood and water can’t flow together,” he said.
However, a blockade of any significant magnitude is not really technically feasible, while neither party has seriously sought to challenge the Treaty of the Indus.
“The disputes over the barrages are mostly symptoms of poor bilateral relationships,” said Gareth Price, a researcher at Chatham House.
The problem is that the rival countries conceive water as a zero-sum game – if one taps the resource, it means they are lost to the other.
But Islamabad must do its part, wrote Neil Buhne, UN coordinator in Pakistan, in an opinion piece calling for the country to diversify “its water resources” while reining in inefficiencies that waste water.


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Kashmir

In disputed Kashmir, Pakistan and India are racing to tap the Himalayas

The Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project in Nosari, Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Photo: AFP

This photograph taken on November 1, 2017, shows Chinese and Pakistani engineers working on a power distribution point of the Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project in Chattar Klass on the outskirts of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Several hundred metres underground, thousands of labourers grind away day and night on a mammoth hydroelectric project in contested Kashmir, where India and Pakistan are racing to tap the subcontinent's diminishing freshwater supplies. / AFP PHOTO / SAJJAD QAYYUM / To go with: Pakistan-India-politics-environment,FEATURE by Caroline Nelly PERROT

This photograph taken on November 1, 2017, shows Chinese and Pakistani engineers walking next to the entrance point of the power distribution point of the Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project in Chattar Klass on the outskirts of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Several hundred metres underground, thousands of labourers grind away day and night on a mammoth hydroelectric project in contested Kashmir, where India and Pakistan are racing to tap the subcontinent's diminishing freshwater supplies. / AFP PHOTO / SAJJAD QAYYUM / To go with: Pakistan-India-politics-environment,FEATURE by Caroline Nelly PERROT

This photograph taken on October 31, 2017, shows Chinese engineers working on the Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project in Nosari, in Pakistan-administered Kashmir's Neelum Valley. Several hundred metres underground, thousands of labourers grind away day and night on a mammoth hydroelectric project in contested Kashmir, where India and Pakistan are racing to tap the subcontinent's diminishing freshwater supplies. / AFP PHOTO / SAJJAD QAYYUM / To go with: Pakistan-India-politics-environment,FEATURE by Caroline Nelly PERROT

This photograph taken on November 1, 2017, shows Chinese engineers working on a power distribution point of the Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project in Chattar Klass on the outskirts of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Several hundred metres underground, thousands of labourers grind away day and night on a mammoth hydroelectric project in contested Kashmir, where India and Pakistan are racing to tap the subcontinent's diminishing freshwater supplies. / AFP PHOTO / SAJJAD QAYYUM / To go with: Pakistan-India-politics-environment,FEATURE by Caroline Nelly PERROT

This photograph taken on October 31, 2017, shows Pakistani and Chinese workers building the Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project in Nosari, in Pakistan-administered Kashmir's Neelum Valley. Several hundred metres underground, thousands of labourers grind away day and night on a mammoth hydroelectric project in contested Kashmir, where India and Pakistan are racing to tap the subcontinent's diminishing freshwater supplies. / AFP PHOTO / SAJJAD QAYYUM / To go with: Pakistan-India-politics-environment,FEATURE by Caroline Nelly PERROT

17 Indian soldiers, 4 commando militants killed in deadliest Kashmir attack in two years

Indian soldiers search for suspected militants as smoke rises from a bunker after a gunbattle in Mohra in Uri in 2014. File photo: Reuters

An Indian Army soldier takes position during an encounter with armed suspected militants at Pindi Khattar village in Arnia border sector, 43 kilometers (27 miles) south of Jammu, India, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2014. An army officer says some of the militants occupied an abandoned bunker in Jammu region early Thursday and fired at the soldiers in Arnia sector in the Indian portion of Kashmir. (AP Photo/Channi Anand)

An Indian paramilitary officer stands guard during a curfew in Srinagar on July 16, 2016. Two people including a teenager were killed July 15, as clashes spread in India-administered Kashmir despite a curfew, with the death toll reaching 38 in a week. / AFP PHOTO / TAUSEEF MUSTAFA

Caught in the middle: Kashmiri police face public wrath amid anti-India uprising

Indian policemen stand guard during a curfew in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir. Photo: AP

epa05525507 Jammu and Kashmir policemen stand guard to stop the activists of Bajrang Dal holding a protest against government and all-party delegation headed by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, in Jammu, the winter capital of Kashmir, India, 05 September 2016. The protestors stated that they have been alloted very less time for meeting with the all-party delegation and the protestors were also against the delegation meeting with the separatists. The All Party delegation, led by Rajnath Singh, was on a two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir in a bid to end the two-month long unrest. In past 59 days of summer unrest in Kashmir, over 70 civilians have been killed and more than 8,500 injured following the killing of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander, Burhan Muzaffar Wani and his two associates in a gunfight on 08 July 2016. EPA/JAIPAL SINGH

Kashmiri protesters shout slogans during a protest in Srinagar on August 27, 2016. Police in Indian-administered Kashmir have arrested a top separatist leader, his aide said August 27, as the region's chief minister met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and defended a 50-day lockdown on the region. It came as the number of civilians killed since protests erupted in Kashmir last month after the shooting of a popular militant leader hit 68 August 27, while a police constable was also shot dead. / AFP PHOTO / SAJJAD HUSSAIN

FILE - In this Aug. 31, 2016, file photo, Kashmiri protesters face Indian policemen in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir. As Kashmir enters a third month of tense conflict marked by violent street clashes and almost daily protests following the July 8, 2016 killing of charismatic rebel leader Burhan Wani, Indian government troops backed by local police are maintaining a tight security lockdown throughout the region. That's left the local Kashmiri police, tasked with patrolling the streets, gathering intelligence and profiling anti-India activists, feeling demoralized, afraid and caught in the middle between the Indian authorities who employ them and the friends and neighbors who question their loyalties. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin, File)

Kashmiri Muslim women shout pro freedom slogans during a protest march in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Friday, Aug. 26, 2016. Curfew and protests have continued across the valley amidst outrage over the killing of a top rebel leader by Indian troops in early July, 2016. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)

In this Aug. 31, 2016, photo, graffiti eulogizing militant commander Burhan Wani, who was killed in July, is painted on the shutters of shops in downtown Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir. In death, Wani has become something that India has long feared: a homegrown militant openly lionized across the embattled region, a powerful symbol against Indian rule who has united Kashmir's many factions. Today, rock-throwing high school students paint his name on shuttered storefronts while everyone from fearsome insurgents to moderate politicians mourn him. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

Pakistani Kashmir has millions of precious rubies but only occasional rewards

An employee of Azad Kashmir Mineral and Industrial Development Corporation (AKMIDC) shows a ruby gemstone. Photo: AFP

This photograph taken on September 13, 2017 shows Pakistani students refining gemstones at their workplace at the Gems & Jewellery Training & Processing Centre in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The people of Pakistani Kashmir are sitting on a treasure chest: Millions of rubies, estimated to be worth up to half a billion dollars, are lying beneath them. But a lack of investment in infrastructure and archaic tools and techniques are hampering efforts to tranform the area into a significant player in the gem industry. / AFP PHOTO / SAJJAD QAYYUM / TO GO WITH: Pakistan-mining-Kashmir-rubies, FEATURE by Caroline Nelly Perrot

This photograph taken on September 20, 2017 shows a Pakistani labourer Muhammad Azeem removing pieces of rock after blasting at a mountain to find gemstones in the Kashmiri town of Chitta Katha in Upper Neelum Valley in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The people of Pakistani Kashmir are sitting on a treasure chest: Millions of rubies, estimated to be worth up to half a billion dollars, are lying beneath them. But a lack of investment in infrastructure and archaic tools and techniques are hampering efforts to tranform the area into a significant player in the gem industry. / AFP PHOTO / SAJJAD QAYYUM / TO GO WITH: Pakistan-mining-Kashmir-rubies, FEATURE by Caroline Nelly Perrot

This photograph taken on September 20, 2017, shows an elderly Pakistani labourer washing a piece of rock outside a mine at a mountain to find gemstones in the Kashmiri town of Chitta Katha in Upper Neelum Valley in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The people of Pakistani Kashmir are sitting on a treasure chest: Millions of rubies, estimated to be worth up to half a billion dollars, are lying beneath them. But a lack of investment in infrastructure and archaic tools and techniques are hampering efforts to tranform the area into a significant player in the gem industry. / AFP PHOTO / SAJJAD QAYYUM / TO GO WITH: Pakistan-mining-Kashmir-rubies, FEATURE by Caroline Nelly Perrot

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