By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Aug 12 2004 (IPS)

The recent spate of life-threatening floods, which has affected hundreds of millions in South Asia, once again points to the need for a regional approach to managing the Himalayan rivers that flow through India, China, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.

The recent spate of life-threatening floods, which has affected hundreds of millions in South Asia, once again points to the need for a regional approach to managing the Himalayan rivers that flow through India, China, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.

”It is time that these countries set aside their political differences and cooperated so that people benefit from Himalayan waters rather than suffer annually from floods,” Sudhirendar Sharma, a former World Bank consultant, told IPS.

As Sharma spoke thousands of people in India’s northern Himachal Pradesh state were being evacuated from the Sutlej Valley – in fear of flash floods should waters in the Parechu river, a tributary of the Sutlej river overflow.

The creation of an artificial lake on the Parechu as a result of debris from heavy landslides late July caught authorities in both India and China unawares and aerial surveys now show the large body of impounded water ready to burst out.

According to aerial surveys carried out by the Indian Air Force (IAF) and satellite imagery, the artificial lake on the Parechu now measures 190 hectares and was continuing to grow threatening hundreds of villages in the Sutlej river which flows through Himachal Pradesh and Punjab before crossing into Pakistan.

While at least 4,000 families from Himachal Pradesh’s vulnerable tourist district of Kinnaur have already been evacuated, another 350 villages stand in danger of being washed away or submerged should the Parechu overflow into the Sutlej.

Indian authorities said they were still awaiting clearance from Beijing for a team of experts from India’s Central Water Power Commission and from the 1,500 mewgawatt Nathpa-Jhakri Hydro-electrical Project on the Sutlej to visit the lake.

Experts said the situation was comparable to the one in 2000 when more than 150 people died in the Kinnaur valley and 98 bridges were washed away by flash floods in the Sutlej caused by lake-bursts in Tibet.

That year, another breach in an artificial lake formed on Tibet’s Tsangpo river (called the Brahmaputra in India), resulted in 50,000 people losing their homes in India’s north-eastern Arunachal Pradesh and causing floods in Assam state and in Bangladesh further downstream.

Speaking to reporters in Shimla, the capital of Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday, the director of the Nathpa-Jhakri project H.K. Sharma said, however, that the latest satellite images showed that the danger was not as great as in 2000 though it would have been better to make a physical verification on the ground.

Although Beijing alerted Indian authorities of the impending danger and the militaries of the two countries have been in touch with each other over a hot line, Beijing has shown reluctance in allowing Indian experts from visiting Parechu.

China is also reported to have turned down a proposal by India to carry out controlled blasting of the artificial lake to gradually relieve it of the water dammed up by the landslides.

Relations between Asia’s two largest countries have begun to thaw only in recent years after the brief but bloody border war they fought in 1962. It took until 2002 before an agreement could be signed to revive joint-hydrographical surveys in the Sutlej river basin.

Of greater concern to India and to Bangladesh is the Brahmaputra which is mainly responsible for the annual floods that hit the eastern region of the sub-continent.

Estimates say that this year’s floods, the worst in over a decade, has claimed close to 2,000 lives in Bangladesh and in the eastern Indian states of Bihar, West Bengal and Assam. Millions of people have lost their homes in the region that includes Nepal.

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has blamed the devastation in his state and in neighbouring areas on a reservoir newly built in Bhutan as well as topsoil erosion caused by massive deforestation in China and Burma.

Curiously even while the eastern region was reeling under floods the western part of the sub-continent including Pakistan is only now beginning to recover from severe droughts as a result of deficient rainfall seriously affecting agriculture.

On Jul. 27, Pakistan’s legislators moved a motion in the National Assembly urging the government to consider buying water from India to tide over acute water shortages and renegotiation of the 1960 Indus Water Treaty between the two countries to get more water from the Sutlej river.

The Indus Water Treaty, negotiated under World Bank auspices, has survived several wars fought between South Asian rivals India and Pakistan. The agreement provides for the sharing of the water of the Indus river and its tributaries, the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej.

Many experts believe that India and China could sign a treaty on the lines of the Indus Water Treaty while continuing to negotiate a lasting border settlement.

Meanwhile, India has also signed other bilateral river water sharing agreements with Bangladesh and Nepal. But these agreements have come up against a barrage of criticism with detractors saying they tend to favour India’s water needs more than that of its neighbours.

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