(Daily News Scan - DNS English) Indus Water Treaty
Important Points:
Indus water treaty between India and Pakistan of 1960 is in limelight again. The water distribution treaty was mediated by World Bank. India plans to completely utilize the water available under its share without violating the treaty.
In today’s DNS we will talk about in detail about this treaty, why this treaty is important for both India and Pakistan and why India is focusing to fully utilize the water from these rivers.
The Indus Water treaty signed by India and Pakistan is one of the most liberal water distribution agreements which came into existences after 9 years of negotiations in 1960.
This was signed in September in Karachi by the then Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistan’s President Ayub Khan.
Six rivers were divided between the two nations. India got control over Beas, Ravi, and Sutlej whereas Pakistan got control over Indus, Chenab and Jhelum. India got exclusive right to use the eastern rivers; waters of the western rivers were allocated to Pakistan except for specified domestic, non consumptive and agricultural purposes permitted to India.
The reports tell that India uses nearly 93-94 % of the share of water and the rest unutilized water is left to flow into Pakistan. India is entitled to use only 20% of the total water carried out by the Indus River. India has the right to build dams on the river Indus, Chenab and Jhelum. India has not yet built any dams over these rivers. 80% of the water of Indus basin is utilized by Pakistan.
The present government has announced that it will stop water from flowing into Pakistan without violating the Indus Water treaty. This announcement was made after the Pulwama terror attack in February. Later this month Pakistan blamed India for unexpectedly releasing water into river Sutlej without informing them. As per Pakistan’s claim this was an attempt to disobey the treaty between the countries.
A diversion will be created to secure the water flow from going to Pakistan and the work for this has already begun. The diversion of water will be made to flow into Jammu & Kashmir and Punjab. Some rivers andreservoirs are outside the catchment area, the water will be diverted to these and later can be utilized in the monsoon season or in the lean seasons.
This is not the first demand to stop water to flow to Pakistan. Earlier in 2016 also there were demands to stop the water flow after the URI terrorist attack. It may take six years for India to block Indian waters flowing into Pakistan. Pakistan even opposed the dam projects stating that they were violations of the treaty.
Water is a very sensitive issue. Various terror attacks and discrepancies between the two nations have led to differences in sharing water. The implementation of the treaty effectively will only benefit the two countries and creating a healthy relationship.
