The decades-old Tulbul project, located in North Kashmir, was halted in the 1980s due to objections from Pakistan, which claimed the project violated the provisions of the IWT — a water-sharing agreement brokered by the World Bank in 1960. However, the treaty was suspended last month by the Indian government after a deadly terror attack in Pahalgam that claimed the lives of 26 civilians.
The development has triggered political tensions, with both leaders taking to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to express their opposing views.
In a post, Omar Abdullah reignited debate over the Tulbul barrage, sharing a video clip of the site. "Wular Lake in North Kashmir. The civil works you see in the video are the Tulbul Navigation Barrage. It was started in the early 1980s but had to be abandoned due to pressure from Pakistan citing the Indus Water Treaty. Now that the IWT has been 'temporarily suspended', I wonder if we will be able to resume the project," he wrote.
Abdullah, who has consistently criticized the IWT, argued that reviving the project would yield multiple benefits. "It will help us utilize the Jhelum River for navigation and enhance power generation from downstream hydroelectric projects, especially during winter," he added.
Reacting sharply, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti slammed Abdullah’s remarks, calling them “dangerously provocative.” In her post on X, she wrote, “Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s call to revive the Tulbul Navigation Project amid ongoing India-Pakistan tensions is extremely unfortunate. Such statements only add fuel to an already volatile situation.”
The exchange between the two prominent Kashmiri leaders highlights deep divisions over the handling of water resources and regional diplomacy, as tensions between India and Pakistan continue to influence internal political discourse in Jammu and Kashmir.