India not providing advance data on rivers

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has yet to receive advanced data on the rivers entering Pakistan from India despite heavy rains in the catchment areas.

India is supposed to start provision of the data from July 01 on regular basis till October 10 every year. It was agreed 31 years ago in 1989 through an international agreement between Pakistan and India.

Well-placed diplomatic sources told The News here Saturday that Islamabad has reminded New Delhi about its obligation in the matter, but the Indian government hasn’t responded about it. The arrangement was made in line with the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) between the two countries inked way back in September 1960 that ensures apportionment of rivers water flowing across the two countries. The 1989 accord binds India to put in place the system of providing requisite information so that arrangements could be made for dispersal of water in the rivers and canals. In case of heavy flow of water and flood-like situation, Pakistan could secure its people and properties according to information provided well in time, the sources reminded.

Interestingly, India started provision of information after mid-August last year upon Pakistan’s repeated reminders. The sources pointed out that the experts have made forecast about much more rainfall this year and flood-like situation could occur abruptly, and it has become imperative for the administration to have relevant information well in time.

The sources pointed out that in the wake of abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian constitution that paved the way for annexation of Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJ&K) by New Delhi rulers, the incumbent anti-Muslim Narendra Modi extremist government has accelerated efforts to breach the IWT by constructing dams on water flowing into Pakistan through flagrant defiance of the treaty.

India has already started lobbying with like-minded UN members. India has distributed a draft plan asserting that it needs to act on several options including construction of new dams in the IOJ&K under the pretext to counter so-called impacts of climate change. The sources said that India is very cleverly promoting its narrative by hinting that since IOJ&K is now a Union territory, it has every right to use its water rivers flowing into Pakistan.

Indian lobbyists in Washington have also engaged several Democratic and Republican Congressmen for mustering their support for the move. The strategy is two-prong: first, to build dams storing water and cutting supply of water flow to Pakistan and, second, to open the gates when water levels in proposed dams from glassier are about to burst, flooding Pakistan, and causing havoc and destruction all around.

The sources reminded that Indian diplomats have been openly pleading that in the aftermath of abrogating Article 370, it will be debated that since it is India’s internal issue to utilise water flowing from IOJ&K, Delhi is under no obligation to respect IWT. The sources are of the view that new Indian approach is going to have serious consequences for Pakistan since it has moved from conventional warfare to fifth generation hybrid warfare. This move could potentially strangulate around 220 million people of Pakistan.

The IWT is a World Bank-brokered settlement signed in Karachi on September 19, 1960, between Pakistan and India to use the water available in the six rivers of the Indus system. As per this agreement, India was given control over the water flowing in three eastern rivers – the Beas, the Ravi and the Sutlej with the mean flow of 33 million acre-feet (MAF), while Pakistan was given control over the water flowing in three western rivers – the Indus, Chenab and the Jhelum with the mean flow of 80 MAF. Indian Union water resources minister has publicly said Indian government had begun the process of stopping the waters from the Himalayan rivers flowing into Pakistan without violating IWT. The work has already begun to stop the waters that flow into Pakistan (under the Indus Treaty). “I am talking about the water which is going to Pakistan, and I am not talking about breaking the Indus Treaty," the Indian minister stated.