Click to play videoNew Delhi: India may have to abandon the ambitious Rs 4,500-crore Baglihar hydroelectric project under construction on the Chenab in Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir.
Sources tell CNN-IBN that the World Bank-appointed neutral expert Raymond Lafitte wants India to incorporate some major changes in the basic design of the dam.
The changes include reducing the height of the dam and constructing a parapet around it.
Lafitte, a former Swiss dam safety expert and professor at the Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne, also wants the height of the turbine installations to be increased, which can only be done at considerable cost that may ultimately make the project unviable for India.
The only saving grace for India is that Lafitte has rejected Pakistan's contention that the project violates the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960.
Lafitte has also said that India can keep the gated spillways that Pakistan had objected to last month in Washington.
However, despite indications from Lafitte, Pakistan has again objected to the spillways and also the dam pondage which it claims allows India to store double the water permitted by the Indus Waters Treaty.
Lafitte is believed to have sought more time to examine these objections and the final verdict is likely to be out on February 12, 2007.
World Bank appointed Lafitte in May 2005. His first meeting with Indian and Pakistani experts was held in June 2005 in Paris.
They met last in Washington DC in November and it was at this meeting that Lafitte favoured a redesign of the controversial dam.
He had said that both the countries had been "full of cooperation'' in sharing information during his visit to the project site.
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