Delhi suspended its participation in the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of 1960, which governs the usage of the Indus river system, shortly after 26 civilians in India-held Kashmir were killed in what India called an act of terror.<\/p>\n
Pakistan has denied involvement in the incident, but accord remains \u201cin abeyance\u201d by India despite the two nuclear-armed neighbours agreeing a ceasefire last week following the worst fighting between them in decades.<\/p>\n
After the April 22 attack, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered officials to expedite planning and execution of projects on the Chenab, Jhelum and Indus rivers, three bodies of water in the Indus system that are designated primarily for Pakistan\u2019s use, six people told Reuters.<\/p>\n
One of the key plans under discussion involves doubling to 120km the length of the Ranbir canal on the Chenab, which runs through India to Pakistan\u2019s agricultural powerhouse of Punjab, two of the people said. The canal was built in the 19th century, long before the treaty was signed.<\/p>\n
India is permitted to draw a limited amount of water from the Chenab for irrigation, but an expanded canal \u2014 which experts said could take years to construct \u2014 would allow it to divert 150 cubic meters of water per second, up from about 40 cubic meters currently, the four people said, citing official discussions and documents they had seen.<\/p>\n
Details of the Indian government\u2019s deliberations on expanding Ranbir have not previously been reported. The discussions started last month and continue even after the ceasefire, one of the people said.<\/p>\n
The Indian ministries responsible for water and foreign affairs, as well as Modi\u2019s office, did not respond to Reuters\u2019 questions. Indian hydropower giant NHPC, which operates many projects in the Indus system, also did not respond to an email seeking comment.<\/p>\n
Modi said in a fiery speech this week that \u201cwater and blood cannot flow together,\u201d though he didn\u2019t refer to the treaty. Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters on Tuesday that India \u201cwill keep the treaty in abeyance until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism\u201d.<\/p>\n
The water and foreign ministries of Pakistan did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar told lawmakers this week that the government had written to India arguing that suspending the treaty was unlawful and that Islamabad regarded it as remaining in force.<\/p>\n
Islamabad said after India suspended the treaty in April that it considered \u201cany attempt to stop or divert the flow of water belonging to Pakistan\u201d to be an \u201cact of war.\u201d<\/p>\n
About 80 per cent of Pakistani farms depend on the Indus system, as do nearly all hydropower projects serving the country of some 250 million.<\/p>\n
Any efforts by Delhi to build dams, canals or other infrastructure that would withhold or divert significant amount of flow from the Indus system to India \u201cwould take years to realise,\u201d said water security expert David Michel of the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Delhi suspended its participation in the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of 1960, which governs the usage of the Indus river system, shortly after 26 civilians in India-held Kashmir were killed in what India called an act of terror. Pakistan has denied involvement in the incident, but accord remains \u201cin abeyance\u201d by India despite the two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9180,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9179"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9181,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9179\/revisions\/9181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}