Indus Waters Treaty: A year on, India’s case for freezing it and what it plans next
The IWT reflects the technological and hydrological realities of the late 1950s. More than six decades later, those circumstances have changed fundamentally.
The Salal dam on the Chenab. Pakistan had objected to its construction. Photo: Wikimedia Commons Pakistan has been increasingly targeting India in recent weeks over the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), which New Delhi had placed in “abeyance” after the Pahalgam terror attack last April.
The Pakistan government organised a seminar in Islamabad that brought together civilian leaders, climate experts and civil-military officials to discuss the growing threat from India’s “weaponisation of the Indus waters”. Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif recently said his country would not hesitate to go to war if its water security is breached. And its military leadership signalled its own institutional readiness to act through a formal statement issued on July 6, following a Corps Commanders Conference chaired by General Asim Munir.
On April 23, 2025, the Cabinet Committee on Security had said: “The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 will be held in abeyance with immediate effect, until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism.” About 15 months later, it is time to evaluate why India did so, the key arguments, and what New Delhi is planning now.
Pakistan’s actions
India maintains it has honoured the treaty through six decades amid wars, military crises, terror attacks and prolonged periods of bilateral hostility as Pakistan pursued a sustained policy of cross-border terrorism. According to New Delhi, agreements of this nature cannot remain insulated from persistent acts of hostility.
India also feels that Pakistan’s conduct under the treaty has reflected a consistent pattern of obstruction. Since the early years of implementation, virtually every Indian project on the Western Rivers (meant for Pakistan’s use) — irrespective of its size, storage capacity or technical design — has been objected to by Pakistan.
Indian officials argue that the treaty’s dispute resolution provisions, intended as an exceptional mechanism for resolving genuine differences, were progressively converted into instruments for delaying Indian projects.
While India’s argument is that it can develop its own water system, its rhetoric of “water and blood cannot flow together” has been perceived to be directed at its domestic political constituency. That weakens its argument in front of the global audience, which often is more sympathetic to Pakistan which portrays itself as the victim as a lower riparian country.
New hydrological realities
The IWT reflects the technological and hydrological realities of the late 1950s. More than six decades later, those circumstances have changed fundamentally. India’s population has increased several-fold, resulting in substantially higher demand for drinking water, irrigation, industry and urban development needs.
States dependent upon the Indus Basin — including Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan — face increasing water stress and growing developmental requirements that could not have been envisaged when the Treaty was negotiated.
The Indus Basin
India also faces a serious challenge of declining groundwater levels, particularly in Punjab and Haryana, making greater utilisation of available surface water an urgent national priority.
At the same time, the hydrological regime has evolved, with reduced availability in the Eastern Rivers (for India’s use) while flows in the Western Rivers (for Pakistan’s use) have not experienced a comparable decline.
Climate change has further altered basin dynamics through greater hydrological variability, increasing the need for flood moderation, drought resilience, storage optimisation and adaptive reservoir operations.
Engineering practices have undergone a profound transformation since 1960. Modern dam safety and sustainability require low-level outlets, drawdown flushing, gated spillways, advanced sediment management and flexible reservoir operations. These technologies were either unavailable or not widely recognised when the treaty was drafted.
India’s commitments towards clean energy transition and climate goals require efficient development of hydropower infrastructure using state-of-the-art engineering practices, rather than technologies frozen in the engineering standards of the 1950s.
The IWT’s structural asymmetry
Sections within India have long maintained that the IWT is one of the most generous water-sharing arrangements ever accepted by an upper riparian state. Volume-wise, Pakistan received rights over nearly 80% of the waters of the Indus Basin, though a much larger portion of land irrigated by the three western rivers is also in Pakistan.
The IWT imposes extensive obligations on India concerning project design, storage limits, spillway configuration, operational procedures and advance information. While Pakistan has built hydropower projects on its rivers, it objects to similar initiatives by India.
What about Pakistan’s water crisis?
Pakistan’s recurring claims of water insecurity are contradicted by its own official documents and public statements. The Pakistan National Water Policy acknowledges that approximately 35 MAF of water flows annually into the Arabian Sea without productive utilisation.
It records that nearly 30-40% of canal water is lost during conveyance, with barely about 58 MAF ultimately reaching farms out of more than 100 MAF diverted through the canal system.
These figures reveal that Pakistan’s principal challenge is not upstream water availability but inefficient water management. Chronic canal seepage, ageing irrigation infrastructure, inadequate storage capacity, poor irrigation efficiency, delayed modernisation and inefficient cropping patterns continue to constrain Pakistan’s agricultural productivity. These are domestic governance and infrastructure issues that cannot reasonably be attributed to India’s hydropower projects.
Significantly, even senior Pakistani leaders have publicly acknowledged this reality. Former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi admitted that Pakistan’s water shortages arise primarily from internal mismanagement rather than any diversion by India.
Pakistan has also attempted in recent times to portray fluctuations in the Chenab River as evidence of hostile manipulation. But officials say this ignores both hydrological realities and established operational practices of run-of-the-river hydropower projects. River flows at downstream locations such as Marala are inherently influenced by seasonal snowmelt patterns in the Himalayas. Variations in winter snowfall, delayed melting, or cooler spring temperatures naturally affect early-season discharge levels. Such fluctuations cannot, by themselves, be interpreted as evidence of deliberate interference.
Temporary fluctuations for a few hours in downstream river flows during sediment flushing or maintenance operations are normal, carefully regulated engineering phenomena observed in reservoir operations across the world.
What India may now be looking at
Utilising waters: India is expediting projects designed to prevent the avoidable wastage of waters allocated to it.
A key priority will be the accelerated development of hydropower projects on the Chenab basin. These are critical for India’s clean energy transition, grid stability and regional development.
Major projects under implementation include the 1,856 MW Sawalkot Hydroelectric Project, the 1,000 MW Pakal Dul Project, the 850 MW Ratle Project, the 624 MW Kiru Project and the 540 MW Kwar Project.
These projects, expected to be commissioned progressively over the next few years, will substantially enhance India’s hydropower capacity while enabling the fuller utilisation of its legitimate rights under the Indus basin.
The Ujh Multipurpose Project, on a tributary of the Ravi, will enable the storage and productive utilisation of waters that presently flow unutilised across the International Boundary while simultaneously providing irrigation, drinking water, flood moderation and hydropower benefits to Jammu & Kashmir and other states.
In addition to this, steps are being undertaken for utilisation of rightful share of waters to water-stressed areas to meet increased water demand for purposes such as irrigation and drinking.
Flushing reservoirs: India will also restore the efficiency and sustainability of existing hydropower projects through modern reservoir and sediment management practices. For decades, essential maintenance measures such as sediment flushing and operation of low-level outlets were either delayed or constrained because of persistent objections from Pakistan, despite these being internationally accepted engineering practices.
The Salal Hydroelectric Project, particularly, illustrates the long-term engineering consequences of such restrictions. Originally designed with a gross storage capacity of about 284 MCM, the project was compelled to plug its low-level sediment outlets following Pakistan’s objections, depriving the reservoir of its primary sediment management mechanism. As a result, the reservoir rapidly silted up within a few years of commissioning, reducing its effective storage to barely 9 MCM, increasing turbine abrasion and significantly impairing its operational efficiency.
The recent sediment flushing undertaken at the Baglihar and Salal Hydroelectric Project marks the beginning of a systematic programme to restore lost storage, improve reservoir performance and enhance the long-term safety and efficiency of hydropower infrastructure. Similar measures are being undertaken at other projects wherever technically warranted.
Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 27 years... Read More
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