The Dulhasti Stage-II Hydroelectric Project has become yet another, kind of awkward flashpoint in the hydro-political standoff between India and Pakistan. India says it is a 260 MW run-of-the-river set-up made to produce electricity from the Chenab system in the Kishtwar district. This explanation might be technically right, though it feels strategically incomplete or maybe more like half-finished. The project is moving ahead while India has unilaterally kept the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance, sidestepped meaningful cooperation, and continued building additional infrastructure on the western rivers which Pakistan regards as central to its water security.

The Indus Waters Treaty is built on a straightforward split. The eastern rivers were assigned to India, and the western rivers, including the Chenab, were assigned primarily to Pakistan. India was not totally blocked from using the western rivers. But its entitlements were narrowed in a very particular way. In practice, India could develop run-of-the-river hydropower projects that comply with the treaty; however, these schemes had to stay within specific boundaries and they could not meaningfully affect Pakistan’s unrestricted use of the waters, except where the treaty explicitly allows it. Right now, that legal equilibrium is under visible pressure.

Dulhasti Stage-II matters because it sorta strengthens India’s operational presence on the Chenab. The whole project is about drawing water from the existing Dulhasti Power Station, but via a separate tunnel, then pairing it with extra infrastructure like pondage, shafts, and an underground powerhouse. On its own, those pieces can look pretty normal, like ordinary hydropower components, nothing more. But in the present strategic setting, it creates a sharper kind of question, almost like a test: how much upstream regulatory........

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