Home Minister chairs meet on Indus treaty, plan to cut water to Pak in works

A day after India notified holding the six-decades-old Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan in abeyance, Home Minister Amit Shah chaired a high-level meeting to plan the rollout of the decision.

“We are working to ensure that Pakistan does not get even a single drop of water,” Jal Shakti Minister CR Paatil said after the meeting, where top water management experts of the government were in attendance to discuss how India should proceed.

Paatil said the focus was on short, medium and long-term plans. Detailing long-term plans, the minister mentioned storage of waters of the three western rivers by construction of new dams and projects to divert the river waters away from Pakistan.

De-silting at the existing hydroelectric power projects on the western rivers could be done as part of the short to medium term plans. In the pre abeyance of IWT era, India was bound by rules of the treaty which prevented it to even plan and design, let alone build dams on the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum, the three western rivers allocated to Pakistan under the IWT or even attempt new technology desilting at hydroelectric power projects to improve their live storage capacity which is currently very low.

Experts have told The Tribune that India currently does not have the capacity to store the waters of the three western rivers or divert them but can build those capacities now with the treaty suspended.

“We never built this capacity in the past because the treaty did not permit such design or planning on the western rivers allocated to Pakistan when the World Bank brokered the pact in 1960. With the treaty now suspended, we are no longer bound by its rules and are free to design and roll out water storage or diversion projects along the western rivers,” said Kushvinder Vohra, former chairman of the Central Water Commission.

He said India will also no longer be obligated to share information regarding water storage levels or water flow in the Indus River System with Pakistan. As for long term options of halting the flow of water to Pakistan — water storage through dams or river water diversion — both would require commissioning of on site feasibility studies, cost benefit analysis and planning, experts said.

‘Won’t share hydrological data with pak’

Before the suspension of the treaty, India was prohibited from planning, designing or building storage projects on the western rivers or even initiating new technology-based de-silting to improve capacity. With the IWT in abeyance, India is now free to pursue these activities. India is also no longer obligated to share hydrological data with Pakistan

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