NEW DELHI, Nov 14: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who is on an official visit to Delhi, on Wednesday met with Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar.
A picture of Abdullah and Dhankhar exchanging greetings shared on the official X handle by the Vice-President’s office. Officials said the two leaders were discussing a lot of important issues regarding J&K in a meeting which lasting more than 30 mins. There have been a lot of rising issues in J&K recently.
Abdullah, who arrived in the national capital on Monday evening, will most likekly also meet the president of India Droupadi Murmu and also meet Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman soon, the officials said.
On Tuesday, Abdullah attended a conference of Power Ministers of States and Union Territories during which he pressed on the issue of the Indus Water Treaty was restricting Jammu and Kashmir’s ability to harness its huge hydel power potential, primarily due to storage constraints.
This treaty which included India and Pakistan signed in 1960 after nine years of negotiations, with the World Bank being a signatory to the pact that sets out a mechanism for cooperation and information exchange between the two sides on the use of waters of a number of cross-border rivers in Jammu and Kashmir.
“As a fallout of the treaty barriers, Jammu and Kashmir pays a heavy price in the peak winter months when power generation hits a low, creating hardships for its people,” Abdullah had said at the conference.
He had highlighted the limiting clauses in the treaty that restricted Jammu and Kashmir from realising its full hydel power potential by promoting run-of-the-river projects and said “hydel power is Jammu and Kashmir’s only viable energy source. The region still is dependent on other states for the Hydro- Power energy, which adversely impacts its economy”.
He has also demanded that a special compensation will be required from the Centre, including viability gap funding and equity assistance, to harness its untapped hydro-energy potential.
