Pakistan gears up to allow gas pipeline

Days after a standalone commitment in the joint declaration made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf committing the two countries to creating conditions for the $3 billion pipeline from Iran to India via Pakistan, the reaction in Pakistan has been ecstatic but Indians are still trying to grapple with the practicability of the proposal.

The chief of the committee on energy policy in the Planning Commission, Kirit Parekh, is said to have suggested that to address India's security concerns, the pipe-line could be brought to the Indo-Pak border and bifurcated into two so that any damage upstream that affected supplies to India would result in disrupting supplies to Pakistan as well.

A former Indian ambassador to the US who served during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime said another diplomatic possibility was to create a linkage between the newest economic move in India-Pakistan relations with another that has worked highly successfully even at the height of bilateral tension, the Indus Water Treaty. By linking supply of gas to the supply of water, both countries would be forced to ensure workability.

While Indian reactions to the pipeline proposal range from the dubious to the frankly sceptical, hopes in Pakistan are running high. The Islamabad stock market has gained steadily over the last two days mainly on account of optimism on India-Pakistan relations and rapid buying of oil, gas and cement stocks.

Eminent Pak economist Akmal Hussain, in a signed article in Pakistan's Daily Times today, has pointed out that pipeline negotiations should be concluded quickly because the pipeline could bring an estimated $700 million annual transit fee income to Pakistan, thereby raising its gross national products (GNP) by 1 per cent.

"For India it would mean much larger gains in terms of cheaper energy that could play a key role in sustaining its economic growth," he said.

This, combined with supply to Pakistan of diesel fuel produced in the Panipat refinery would not only mean large economic gains from cheaper diesel oil for Islamabad but also create, together with the gas pipeline project, an economic interdependence that could enable rapid resolution of political disputes, Hussain said.

Pakistani intellectuals are going further in suggesting new areas of co-operation and ties, including a motorway between Islamabad and Mumbai via New Delhi; joint-venture projects in watershed management to increase the life of dams, construction of new dams and lining of canals in India and Pakistan.

Iran and Pakistan are to hold negotiations on the pipeline at the end of December in Islamabad. Iran had asked international Australia-based oil company, Broken Hills and Proprietory (BHP) to conduct an onshore feasibility study.

Following this study, three options were thrown up""the Turkmenis-tan-Afghanistan-Pakistan, Pakistan-Iran and Qatar-Pakistan gas pipelines. Phase one of the project was to have been Iran-Pakistan with the extension to India in Phase two.

Meanwhile, in a move to facilitate exchange of medi-care and health facilities at reduced cost in south Asian countries, a telemedicine link was launched today between a private hospital New Delhi and its centre in Pakistan.

The Delhi-Lahore telemedicine link would enable medical practitioners in Pakistan to access expert advice from specialists at Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, Prathap Reddy, chairman of the Apollo Hospitals group, which has initiated the move, said.