Pakistan pleads India to reconsider decision on Indus Waters Treaty

Pakistan has appealed to India to reconsider its decision to keep the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance, stating the dependence of millions of people in the country on the water being regulated by the 1960 treaty.

The treaty was put in abeyance based on a decision of the cabinet committee on security (CCS) on April 23, a day after the Pahalgam terror attack, which killed 26.

The appeal is learnt to have been made in a letter by the secretary of Pakistan’s ministry of water resources, Syed Ali Murtaza, to India’s Jal Shakti ministry secretary Debashree Mukherjee.

India has not formally commented on the letter for now.

However, sources said that it was not going to have any effect on the decision the cabinet committee on security took on April 23 to put the treaty on hold as a retaliation against the killing of tourists in Pahalgam.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his address to the country after “Operation Sindoor" also stated that “blood and water cannot flow together".

India has also rejected Pakistan’s charge that the decision to keep the treaty in suspension was “illegal".

India in the past few days had undertaken flushing and desilting of reservoirs of two run-of-the-river hydropower projects — Baglihar and Salal — on the Chenab river in Jammu and Kashmir, resulting in the obstruction and irregularity of water flow downstream.

Since India, after suspending the treaty, is not under any obligation to share any data with Pakistan on water flow after flushing or opening of gates, the neighboring country has been facing the pinch of irregular flow ahead of the upcoming sowing season.

The treaty allocates three western rivers, Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab, to Pakistan, while the eastern rivers – Sutlej, Beas, and Ravi, remain with India. As per the 1960 treaty, India got around 30 per cent of the total water carried by the Indus River System located in India, while Pakistan got the remaining 70 per cent.

India