Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab on Friday agreed to resume work on the Shahpur Kandi Dam project in Gurdaspur ahead of the annual Permanent Indus Commission meet to discuss the Indus Water Treaty later this month. The agreement between the two states was brokered by the Water Resources Ministry, PTI reported.

Punjab’s Irrigation Secretary KS Pannu and his Jammu and Kashmir counterpart Saurabh Bhagat signed a pact to resume the project soon. Water Ministry Secretary Amarjit Singh was present at the event. “The project will ensure better utilisation of India’s rights under the Indus Water Treaty over the eastern rivers of the Indus basin,” an unidentified government official told The Indian Express.

The hydroelectricity project was put on hold after a dispute between the two states over its design. An official said that even though many of the disagreements between the states had been resolved, some issues were still pending. “The states have agreed to resolve these through the arbitration mechanism according to a 1979 agreement that exists between them,” the official told the English daily.

Under the project, a 55.5m-high dam will be constructed on Ravi river to provide irrigation facility to about 5,000 hectares of agricultural land in Punjab and more than 32,000 hectares in Jammu and Kashmir. It is also expected to generate 206 mega watt electricity.

The construction of the Shahpur Kandi project was taken up in 1999, however, it was stopped in 2014. The Rs 2,285.81-crore project was declared a national project by the central government.

On Friday, it was reported that India had accepted Pakistan’s invitation to attend the next Permanent Indus Commission that will be held in Lahore in March. The development had come months after India had declared to suspend talks with Pakistan over the treaty issue following the attacks in Jammu and Kashmir’s Uri in September 2016. “Blood and water can’t flow together at the same time,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said at that time.