During Pak-India talks between their water and power secretaries held at Islamabad, India once again gave the assurance that it would provide technical details of Wullar Barrages new design to Pakistan within a month and make changes in it where necessary. Our reply was that we would analyze the changes and give our response by September this year. We must not forget that barrages and dams on our share of Indus waters should be opposed tooth and nail. Our consent to make changes in the design that India promises would be construed as a sell-out on our part; we must insist that these waters should remain free of any obstruction of any sort as stipulated under the Indus Waters Basin Treaty. It is also very clear that this 'assurance is the typical display of time buying tactics that India has been relying on since 1986 when we first discovered that the barrage was secretly being built. This is precisely what New Delhi did in the case of Baglihar Dam and some other hydropower projects in Held Kashmir. Wullar Barrage on River Neelum with a storage capacity of 0.3 million acre feet poses a real threat to our economy. It frequently causes water shortage in Mangla Dam, dealing a severe blow to our agriculture. It bears mentioning that the barrage holds strategic importance for India as it has been specifically designed to facilitate movement of troops between Baramula and Srinagar, which no doubt underscores the point that the core issue of Kashmir is the main cause of tension between the two countries and needs to be settled at the earliest. We must realise that inflexibility has been the hallmark of New Delhis policies vis--vis outstanding issues with us. Islamabad ought to get tough and to settle the water issue must not hesitate to seek help of the World Bank, the guarantor of the Indus Waters Treaty, to play its due role.