Working on plans to halt flow of water to Pak, says minister
India's government plans to prevent water flow from cross-border rivers to Pakistan, suspending the Indus Waters Treaty after a deadly terror attack.
The Union government has prepared a roadmap to ensure that not a drop of water flows from cross-border rivers into Pakistan, jal shakti minister CR Paatil said on Friday, after a meeting chaired by Union home minister Amit Shah that focused on the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 over the Pahalgam terror attack.
The meeting, attended by representatives of several key ministries, was convened two days after the Indian government suspended the water-sharing treaty and announced a raft of punitive measures against Pakistan over cross-border links to the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir that killed 26 people.
“A roadmap was prepared in the meeting...The government is working on short-term, medium-term and long-term measures so that not even a drop of water goes to Pakistan,” Paatil told reporters after the meeting that lasted about 40 minutes.
The meeting discussed three options, Paatil said without giving details. “Soon, desilting of rivers will be done to stop the water and divert it,” he said.
The announcement came a day after Pakistan’s deputy prime minister Ishaq Dar rejected India’s decision to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 and told a media briefing that any stopping of river waters “will be tantamount to an act of war”.
Paatil also said in a social media post that the government’s “historic decision” on the Indus Waters Treaty is “completely justified and in the national interest”. He reiterated in the post, “We will ensure that not even a drop of water from the Indus river goes to Pakistan.”
People familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity that the objective of the meeting was to implement the government’s decision to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty.
“The meeting was to figure out what the next steps are. The Union home minister had some suggestions, and the officials had others. We will work on those in the coming days,” one of the people said.
A presentation on all river-related infrastructure projects, including those under construction and those approved in-principle, was made at the meeting, an official aware of developments said.
“Discussions were held on how the Indus Waters Treaty is very prohibitive, outdated and unfair to India, because all hydropower projects till now have been fully compliant with a treaty that doesn’t allow these projects to meet India’s requirements,” the official said, declining to be named.
The announcements made after the meeting represented the latest developments in the bouquet of measures taken by India to hit back at Pakistan for what was the worst attack on civilians in the country in nearly two decades.
A group of heavily armed terrorists emerged out of the woods at around 2pm on Tuesday and indiscriminately started firing at around 500 tourists who were present on the Baisaran grasslands near Pahalgam town in Kashmir. At least 26 people died – all men, 25 of them tourists, and 24 of them Hindus – in the attack that was reminiscent of the heydays of militancy in the 1990s and 2000s and the worst to rock Kashmir since the abrogation of the region’s special status in 2019.
Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba’s proxy, the Resistance Front (TRF), has claimed responsibility for the attack that coincided with US vice president JD Vance’s visit to India.
On Friday, the Jal Shakti ministry highlighted the full power generating potential of the Indus system on the Indian side and “design constraints” imposed on dams due to the treaty, he said.
The Jal Shakti ministry also highlighted how India can make more efficient and environmentally sustainable hydropower projects with the suspension of the treaty.
“Technical experts pointed out that modern dams are very different structurally and by design. Modern dams are safer and cost less than older models. Because of newer technology, efficiency is greater but the treaty is outdated and didn’t allow dams with modern design,” the official said.
In the medium-term, the government will build projects that meet consumption needs, which was not possible under the treaty. “The biggest problem was that despite growing demand, it was not easy to build storage dams due to the constraints imposed by the treaty,” the official said.
The meeting also reviewed the progress on key dams being built, including the 930-MW Ratle project that Pakistan had objected to.
India is building seven dams in the Kishtwar region – Bursar dam (800 MW), Pakal Dul (1,000 MW), Kwar dam (540 MW), Ratle hydroelectric project (930 MW), Kiru dam (624 MW), Kirthai-I (390 MW) and Kirthai-II (930 MW).
A day after the Pahalgam terror attack, a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty, close the only operational land border crossing at Attari and downgrade diplomatic ties.
The Pakistan government responded on Thursday by closing its airspace to Indian airliners and suspending all trade with India, including through third countries. Pakistan, which has denied any link to the terror attack, threatened to suspend other bilateral treaties with India, including the Simla Agreement.
The treaty governs the use of the western rivers — the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab— and the eastern rivers — the Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej— by both the countries.
After nearly a decade of negotiations, India and Pakistan signed the deal on September 19, 1960 in Karachi. It provided for the building of dams, link canals and barrages as per the treaty’s terms, paving the way for two of Pakistan’s biggest projects, the Tarbela dam on the Indus river and the Mangla dam on the Jhelum.
Its key provisions allow the control of seasonal fluctuations in flows through the rivers, creating resources that feed 80% of Pakistan’s irrigation networks and allows India to construct projects to avoid acrimony, said Prakash Upadhyay, retired faculty of the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee.
The deal gives India powers to regulate flows in the Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej or the eastern rivers while Pakistan has the authority to manage the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab, the western rivers. Pakistan lies downstream of the entire Indus basin.
A third of Pakistan’s energy depends on hydropower and the Indus rivers are a lifeline for Punjab, the country’s bread basket. A unilateral pull-out from the treaty by India can wreak havoc to the neighbour’s farming systems, delay sowing, sap power supply and jeopardise food security, analysts have said.
