ISLAMABAD, Sept 27: Pakistan has raised objections to four new hydropower projects of 1,716MW capacity to be built by India on western rivers in violation of the Indus Waters Treaty.

With this, the total number of violations by India of the1960 treaty hasincreased to 10, including Baglihar and Kishenganga, two major cases taken up by Pakistan with the International Court of Arbitration or neutral experts.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has informed the National Assembly in a statement that at present India is working on six hydropower projects on western rivers Thelum, Chenab and Indus assigned to Pakistan under the World Bank-sponsored treaty on which the two sides are involved in a dispute.

`In addition to old issues of Kishenganga and Wullar Barrage projects, there are four run-of-river hydroelectric projects which are under discussion for resolution at the level of Permanent Indus Commission (PIC) under the relevant provisions of the Indus Waters Treaty 1960, says the statement placed before the lower house two days ahead of a scheduled meeting between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart Dr Manmohan Singh in New York.

The new controversialprojects include Ratle Hydroelectric Plant (48MW), Miyar (120MW), Lower Kalnai (48MW) and Pakul Dul (1000MW to be ultimately increased to 1,500MW).

The statement said Pakistan had been provided with the designs of the projects about a year ago and was seeking an amicable resolution of the issues at the level of the PIC. Pakistan has been asking India to provide information about its projects at the planning stage but it never did that though it was bound to do so under the Indus Water Treaty.

Pakistan had serious objections to the design of Ratle Hydropower Project and minor ones on the remaining three projects, it said and expressed the hope that the issues would be resolved in the next meetings of the PIC.

About the dispute over Wullar Barrage and Kishenganga Hydropower Project, the statement said that the last secretary-level talks on the issue was held in March 2012 in which Pakistan expressed its desire to keep the issue within the ambit of the dialogue process. `The Indians, however, proposed to submit the matter to the Court of Arbitration.

Under the bilateral treaty, waters of western rivers Indus, Jhelum and Chenab were allocated toPakistan, except for certain specified and restricted uses allowed to India, including domestic, non-consumption and agricultural uses and generation of hydropower through run-of-river plants.

The treaty allocated to India waters of eastern rivers Sutlej, Bias and Ravi. It required India to provide complete information about its new hydroelectric and storage projects to Pakistan six months before the start of their construction.

Separately, Water and Power Minister Khwaja Mohammad Asif told the assembly a few days ago that India had committed five major violations of the treaty since January 2000, involving Kishenganga, Baglihar, Chutak and Nimoo Bazgo projects, but he did not talk about new projects mentioned by the foreign affairs ministry.

He pointed out three categories of violations in five major cases not following the design criteria given in the treaty (in case of Baglihar and Kishenganga), constructing projects without informing Pakistan (Chutak on the Suru tributary of Indus) and not following operational provisions (in case of filling of Baglihar dam).

Also, India`s design of Nimoo Bazgo violated certain provisions of the treaty, he said.