Indo-Pak row on Baglihar Dam to end soon

The World Bank on Thursday announced that Professor Raymond Lafitte, the Neutral Expert appointed to address 'the difference' between India and Pakistan over the construction of the Baglihar Dam on the Chenab River in India, will announce his decision on February 12 in Bern, Switzerland.

Lafitte, a Swiss national, who is a civil engineer and professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, under the terms of the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, was appointed by the World Bank on May 10, 2005 to render a decision on what the it put mildly as "a difference" between the two governments regarding the Baglihar project.

According to the provisions of the treaty, the decision of Professor Lafitte on all matters within his competence is final and binding.

A major controversy erupted at the time when it was rumored that Praful Patel, vice president of the World Bank for South Asia -- a Ugandan of Indian origin -- had been appointed by the World Bank to arbitrate the dispute between India and Pakistan. Islamabad had strongly protested the appointment of Patel, alleging that someone of Indian origin will be biased against Pakistan.

At the time, Islamabad publicly denied the allegation that it had protested Patel's naming, but privately several sources confirmed to rediff.com that this was the case and that the World Bank had then moved to name an outside expert Lafitte to resolve what it called "a difference," but what was at the time brewing to become an intractable issue.

Bank officials told rediff.com that Patel, one of the most respected officials with an impeccable track record, was highly regarded by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

One source familiar with the meeting between Dr Singh and World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz during which the latter was accompanied by Patel on his visit to India last year, recalled how the prime minister had spent considerable time talking to Patel and engaged in an animated discussion with him on economic and environmental and poverty alleviation issues in South Asia.

The Bank on Thursday said, "The two governments have agreed that the decision of the neutral expert will be disseminated in accordance with their own rules, and therefore the World Bank will have no role in the public dissemination of the text of the decision."

The Chenab River is one of the rivers comprising the Indus River system. After the partition of the subcontinent by the British colonialists, the Indus Waters Treaty was concluded on September 19, 1960 by India and Pakistan with support from the World Bank.

The treaty divided the river system between the two countries and the World Bank is a signatory to the treaty for certain specified purposes, although it is not a guarantor of the treaty. Following a request to the World Bank from the government of Pakistan to appoint a neutral expert, the Bank announced on April 25, 2005 that it was required to comply with the request under the terms of the Indus Waters Treaty.

However, once the appointment was made, the World Bank said, it had 'no further role in the process.' The Bank noted that 'this is the first time since the treaty was concluded 47 years ago that the provisions regarding the settlement of differences and disputes have been invoked.'