Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday asserted that “blood and water cannot flow together” as he reviewed the 56-year-old Indus Waters Treaty between India and Pakistan. The Prime Minister sent a clear message to Pakistan that any pact can be successful only in an atmosphere of goodwill, trust and friendship, which are missing at present.
Under the treaty, India has full rights over the three Eastern river — Beas, Sutlej and Ravi — while Pakistan gets to use the Western rivers - Jhelum, Chenab and Indus, allowing India 20 per cent useage of their water for agriculture, generation of hydroelectric power, domestic and non-consumptive use and storage.
Conveying to Pakistan that it cannot take India for granted, the Modi Government has decided to end the “generosity” shown in the water sharing agreement and use its rights to the fullest under the treaty to “exploit to the maximum” water of the Pakistan-controlled rivers.
Also, apart from reviewing the construction work on the Tulbul navigation project at the mouth of the Jhelum-fed Wular lake, India is also examining work on its three dams, Pakal Dul, Sawalkot and Bursar, on the Chenab river. While construction on Pakal Dul is already on, the files on the other two are at an advance stage of approvals. During the meeting, it was decided to move expeditiously on these three.
The high-level meeting, chaired by Modi, took place amidst high tension between the two neighbours in the aftermath of the Uri terror attack.
There was a demand from certain quarters to scrap the Indus Waters Treaty to pressurise Pakistan. However, the Government is not keen on any knee-jerk reactions.
Sources said that at the meeting, the PM observed that “rakt aur paani ek saath nahin beh sakte” (blood and water cannot flow together).”
The meeting was attended by officials of the Ministry of External Affairs, Water Resource, Power, the Prime Minister’s Office and the National Security Advisor. A task force will be set up to work out the way forward.
On Monday, India decided to review the construction work on the Tulbul Navigation Project that was suspended by New Delhi as a goodwill gesture towards Pakistan. An inter-Ministerial team will also look at India’s rights on Indus, Chenab and Jhelum.
The Government believes that India has not utilised its 20 per cent share in the Western rivers to the full potential. India has also decided to put on hold the meeting of the Permanent Indus Commission saying, “Talks and terror cannot go together”. The Commission has held 112 meetings so far, the last one was six months ago.
“In 1960, when the treaty was signed after ten years of negotiations, no one questioned goodwill and trust aspects. The terms and conditions were seen at that time as very generous from the Indian side as the then Indian Prime Minister (Jawaharlal Nehru) had said ‘I have purchased peace with this treaty’,” official sources said.
Sources added that India, a high riparian State, has been generous to Pakistan on water sharing as a goodwill gesture. But a different and difficult situation with Pakistan, particularly after sustained cross-border terrorism over the last few weeks, has forced the Government to think it was an appropriate time to review the treaty.
“We have not exploited our 20 per cent rights on Western rivers fully, but now we are looking at exercising our legitimate rights under the treaty to the maximum capacity,” sources said.
This includes increasing water consumption for irrigation. Under Annexure C of the treaty India can use the water of the three rivers to irrigate 9.12 lakh acres of its land, which can be increased by 4.2 lakh acres by giving some extra money to Pakistan. However, the current usage is only 8 lakh acres and sources said there is a gap of over 1 lakh acres for India to fill for irrigation using the Western rivers. The Government has decided to use its share of water to cover this.
The decision to review the construction work on the Tulbul navigation project aims to release a certain amount of water from the Wular lake fed by the Jhelum to maintain a minimum depth of 4.5 feet in the river between Anantnag and Baramulla as this area becomes non-navigational during winters.
However, work was stopped after Pakistan objected, saying the barrage may give India control over the flow of the water and hamper its agriculture and damage its own canal project linking Chenab and Jhelum rivers.
Besides, India will also look at having a conservation storage of 3.6 million acre-feet water. “At present we have created no storage capacity but now we are going to look at this aspect,” sources said.
Similarly, India also plans to use the Western rivers for hydropower generation. The total potential identified after the treaty was 18,600 MW, but only 11,406 MW is tapped. India feels there is still lot of scope for power generation projects.