The Strategic Foresight Group (SFG) has in a study said that maintaining forces at the Siachen Glacier, the world's highest battlefield will cost India and Pakistan enormously.

The SFG has in its latest report, "The Second Freedom- South Asian Challenge 2005-2025, said that the conflict between the two nuclear neighbours will cost India as much as 72,000 million rupees and Pakistan 18,000 million rupees in the next five years.

It has said that this apart, the two countries will lose as many as 1,500 soldiers in the same time period, without fighting a war.

It has said that if Islamabad and New Delhi were to mobilize their troops like they did during Operation Parakram in 2002, India would spend only 0.46 percent of its GDP and Pakistan 2.25 percent of its GDP.

It would also affect the investment climate and undermine the GDP growth rate by two per cent, The News quoted the report as saying.

"The object of this report is to examine the challenges facing South Asia in the next 20 years. In 2025, South Asia will have a population close to two billion, which was the world's population in 1925, or ten times the world's population in 225AD," the report said. (ANI)