Kashmir dam project faces delay

A controversial hydro-electric dam project in Indian-administered Kashmir will be delayed by 18 months, Indian officials say.

Tunnels at the dam site have been choked by landslides triggered by heavy rains and flooding earlier this year.

Pakistan says the dam will deprive one of its main agricultural regions of irrigation, but India says the project is crucial for meeting its power needs. The World Bank appointed an arbitrator in May to settle the dispute.

The Baglihar dam project, on the Chenab river, was due to be completed by June 2006.

But an official of Indian-administered Kashmir's Power Development department told the BBC that construction at the dam site has been stopped due to the blockage of both diversion tunnels at the site.

Engineers are seeking to identify a third diversion tunnel in a location not prone to landslides.

The other tunnels can only be reopened when flood water recedes.

Arbitration

The project ran into controversy after Pakistan raised objections to the dam.

India says the dam is crucial for the power needs of Kashmir

It argues that the dam violates the World Bank-brokered 1960 Indus Water treaty which divides the rights of water from six rivers between India and Pakistan.

An arbitrator appointed by the World Bank to settle the dispute, Raymond Lafitte, is expected to visit the dam site in October.

Professor Lafitte is a civil engineer and professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.

The row over the dam has threatened to overshadow ongoing talks between India and Pakistan on a range of issues, including Kashmir.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to meet Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on 14 September at the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.