Pakistan said that India has almost entirely stopped the flow of water across the border through the Chenab river as fears of a clash between the two neighbours mount following a deadly attack in held Kashmir, reports Bloomberg.
Since Sunday morning, the water flow has been throttled by almost 90 per cent of the usual volume that passes to Pakistan, according to Muhammad Khalid Idrees Rana, spokesman for Pakistan’s Indus River System Authority. The nation will be forced to slash water supplies to farms by a fifth if the flow remains curtailed, he said.
“It’s unprecedented,” Rana said, adding that India typically holds some water daily for electricity generation but releases it every few hours.
Choking of the river follows India suspending the more than six decades-old Indus Water Treaty with the neighbour in retaliation to the killing of 26 people in held Kashmir last month. The two countries have since levied a series of tit-for-tat measures, including a ban on trade.
After suspending the treaty, India started work on flushing silt at two of its dams in the Kashmir valley, Reuters reported on Monday.
The reservoirs will have to be refilled after the flushing is completed and that may reduce downstream flow into Pakistan, according to Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator of the New Delhi-based South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, which studies the social and environmental impact of water-related projects. The now suspended Indus water treaty allows flushing only during the monsoon season, he said.
“On the whole, there will be no reduction in water flow,” Thakkar said. “It is temporary. Whatever comes in, flows out. Only the flow pattern may change.”
Rana also said the water could be released later as India doesn’t have capacity to store it permanently.