India suspends Indus Waters Treaty
Responding to the Pahalgam terror attack which claimed 26 lives on Tuesday, India has announced a slew of measures against Pakistan including putting in hold the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 with immediate effect "until Islamabad credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism".
The Indus river basin, whose waters are crucial for both India and Pakistan, consists of the main river, the Indus, along with its five tributaries the Ravi, the Beas, the Sutlej, the Jhelum and the Chenab.
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At the time of Independence, the boundary line between the two newly-independent countries was drawn right across the Indus river basin, leaving Pakistan as the lower riparian and India as the upper riparian.
Pradeep Kumar Saxena, who served as India's Indus Waters Commissioner for more than six years, said India, as an upper riparian country, has multiple options.
Last year, India sent a formal notice to Pakistan, seeking a "review and modification" of the treaty. Putting on hold the treaty could be the first step towards the abrogation of the treaty if New Delhi so decides.
"Although there is no explicit provision in the treaty for its abrogation, Article 62 of the Vienna Convention on Law of the Treaties provides sufficient room under which the treaty can be repudiated in view of the fundamental change of circumstances which has occurred with regard to those existing at the time of conclusion of the Treaty," he told PTI.
Saxena said that in the absence of the treaty, India is under no obligation to follow the restrictions on the "reservoir flushing" of the Kishanganga reservoir and other projects on Western rivers in Jammu and Kashmir. The Indus Waters Treaty currently prohibits it.
Under the treaty, reservoir filling after the flushing has to be done in August -- peak monsoon period -- but with the pact in abeyance, it could be done anytime. A large part of Punjab province in Pakistan depends on Indus waters and its tributaries for irrigation, he said.
Saxena said India also has the option of not sharing flood data on the rivers. This could also prove detrimental to Pakistan, especially during the monsoon when rivers are in spate.
According to the treaty, all the waters of Sutlej, Beas and Ravi with average annual flow of around 33 Million Acre Feet (MAF) is allocated to India for unrestricted use while the waters of Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab with average annual flow of around 135 MAF is allocated largely to Pakistan.
India is permitted to use the waters of the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab for domestic use, non-consumptive agricultural use and generation of hydro power. The right to generate electricity from Indus, Jhelum and Chenab is unrestricted subject to the conditions for design and operation of the treaty. India can also create storages upto 3.6 MAF on these rivers, the pact states, according to Saxena.
Indus Water Treaty has survived three wars between India and Pakistan in 1965, 1971 and the Kargil conflict in 1999.
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