• Pakistan has written to the World Bank asking it to ensure that India abides by the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty. World Bank is the mediator between India and Pakistan under the Indus Water Treaty, which it had helped negotiate over a period of nine years.
• The move comes over reports that India has finished building the Kishanganga hydroelectric project, and the power plant is in the final stage of commissioning.

About the projects:

• The Kishanganga Hydroelectric Plant is an $864 million dam which is part of a run-of-the-river hydroelectric scheme that is designed to divert water from the Kishanganga River to a power plant in the Jhelum River basin.
• It is located 5 km north of Bandipore in Jammu and Kashmir, India and will have an installed capacity of 330 MW. Construction on the dam was temporarily halted by the Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration in October 2011 due to Pakistan’s protest of its effect on the flow of the Kishanganga River (called the Neelum River in Pakistan).
• The Ratle Hydroelectric Plant is a run-of-the-river hydroelectric power station currently under construction on the Chenab River, downstream of the village of Ratle in Doda district of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The project includes a 133 m (436 ft) tall gravity dam and two power stations adjacent to one another.

Background:

• The International Court of Arbitration in February 2013 had upheld India's right to divert the waters of the 'western rivers' of the Indus system in a non-consumptive manner. That means India has a right to divert the flow of water in a river in a different direction.
• In any case, the Kishanganga is a run-of-the-river hydroelectric project, which means the water is not consumed. The project's design entailed the diversion of water from the Kishanganga river into the Jhelum, which eventually flows into Pakistan anyway.
• The only restriction the International Court of Arbitration had placed on India with the project was that it had to ensure the maintenance of a certain amount of flow in the Kishanganga, to help maintain its environment downstream. The river flows into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir almost immediately after the 330 MW hydel plant, and is known there by the name Neelum.
• And that is among the main concerns for Pakistan, that the Kishanganga project could impact its Neelum-Jhelum Hydroelectric Power Plant, which Pakistan started building in 2008, a year after India began constructing the Kishanganga Project. However, since the water of the Kishanganga is going to be diverted into the Jhelum anyway, it is unlikely to affect that project.