The River Pakistan Drained

Pakistan bored a 48-kilometre tunnel beneath Pakistan-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir to divert the Neelum away from Muzaffarabad. The river shrank, the city sweltered, and the tunnel has produced no electricity since May 2024. Jammu and Kashmir, meanwhile, builds hydropower that lights its own homes.

At Nauseri, the Neelum–Jhelum hydropower project swallows almost the entire Neelum river. Below the weir, the river carries roughly 3 per cent of its flow for 41 kilometres down to Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK). Springs along the way have dried up, and the city’s drinking-water system failed, forcing the public to pay for a new one. For seven years, residents have marched under the banner “Darya Bachao, Muzaffarabad Bachao”: save the river, save Muzaffarabad.

A City That Lost Its River

The diversion began in 2018, and Muzaffarabad has paid for it ever since. State officials put the rise in summer average temperatures in and around the city at 4–5 degrees Celsius since the Neelum vanished into the tunnel. The territory’s own environmental protection agency found that the river’s ability to absorb the city’s summer heat had more than halved. Sewage and rubbish now collect in the shrunken riverbed.

Pakistan’s Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) handed over money for mitigation in 2019, but the promised solid-waste plant never materialised, and the local environmental agency refused to certify the work as complete. Protesters camped for two months at the confluence of the Neelum and the Jhelum in protest against the diversions.

The damage reaches beyond the city. In villages along the tunnel’s route, natural springs have run dry. Families now buy water from private suppliers, some have sold their livestock, and others have abandoned their homes for Muzaffarabad. The compensation and new water sources the authorities promised remain largely undelivered.

A Tunnel That Failed

The project itself has become a monument to waste. Pakistan approved it in 2002 at Rs 85 billion and finished it in 2018 at Rs 507 billion, six times the original estimate. Its engineers drove a 48-kilometre tunnel, up to 1,900 metres deep, across an active fault line. The tunnel broke in July 2022 and again in April 2024, the second time at a spot that the project’s own expert panel had flagged in writing.

The plant has generated no electricity since May 2024, and WAPDA has told Pakistan’s Senate that it may stay dark until March 2028. Its owners lose more than Rs 55 billion a year in direct revenue, and replacement fuel could cost the country a further Rs 90–150 billion. Pakistani households still find a Neelum–Jhelum surcharge on every monthly electricity bill.

Little for Those Who Gave the Water

PoJK surrendered its river and gained little in return. In 2021–22, Islamabad paid the territory just Rs 712 million in water use charges for the power its rivers generate. PoJK’s own yearbook records that the territory receives 330 megawatts against a demand of 400.

The next river already stands in line. China Three Gorges plans the 1,124-megawatt Kohala project, which would divert the Jhelum near Muzaffarabad as well. A former head of PoJK’s environmental agency called a second diversion “calamitous”, and officials admitted that nobody had carried out an in-depth study of its environmental impact.

Jammu and Kashmir: Power for Its Own People

Jammu and Kashmir harnesses its rivers for its own homes and its own treasury. It already has 3,540 megawatts of installed hydropower and plans to reach nearly 11,000 megawatts by December 2035. On the Chenab, NHPC is building four projects worth ₹27,945 crore: Pakal Dul (1,000 MW), Kiru (624 MW), Kwar (540 MW) and Ratle (850 MW). Together they will add 3,014 megawatts. Pakal Dul has reached 85 per cent physical progress and Kiru 88.75 per cent.

The Union Territory shares directly in the gains. Under its 2021 agreement with NHPC for Sawalkote, Dulhasti Stage-II and Uri-I Stage-II, Jammu and Kashmir receives 12 per cent of the power free, 1 per cent for local area development and the first right to buy half the output. The power reaches homes: Jammu and Kashmir met 98.6 per cent of its electricity demand in 2023–24, and consumption reached 1,532 kilowatt-hours per person.

Two Rivers, Two Choices

Both halves of Kashmir sit on the same Himalayan rivers. Jammu and Kashmir builds dams that keep a share of the power at home, pay into local development and light its villages. Pakistan dug a tunnel that drained Muzaffarabad’s river, heated its streets, dried its springs and then collapsed, leaving neither water nor power. Now it eyes the Jhelum too. The people of Muzaffarabad have learned the lesson that their rulers refuse to learn: a river is worth more alive than buried in a broken tunnel.