Renegotiate Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan: Parliamentary panel

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, July 22

The government must renegotiate the Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan because present day pressing issues such as climate change, global warming and environmental impact assessment were not taken into account when the pact was signed in 1960.

“There is a need to re-negotiate the Treaty so as to establish some kind of institutional structure or legislative framework to address the impact of climate change on water availability in the Indus basin and other challenges which are not covered under the Treaty,” a Parliamentary committee has recommended.

In reply, the government said the treaty could only be modified jointly by the two governments. It also said the recommendations of the committee in this respect have been shared with the Ministry of External Affairs as the issue pertains to foreign policy.

The Government must also quickly complete projects like Ujh and Shahpur Kandi as well as take a look at the Harike barrage to provide adequate water to the Rajasthan feeder and Sarhind feeder canals which receive only one-third of water while the rest flows into Pakistan, said the seventeenth action taken report of the Standing Committee on Water Resources tabled in Lok Sabha on Friday.

It also took note of inadequate work done to harness the waters of Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab (western rivers) which largely flows into Pakistan.

For instance, India as per the Indus Water Treaty can create water capacity storage upto 3.6 Million Acre-Feet (MAF) on Western rivers but no storage capacity has been created so far.