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DETAILS
- The water distribution treaty between India and Pakistan that was brokered by the World Bank in 1960 to use the water available in the Indus system of rivers originating in India
THE INDUS WATERS TREATY
- The Indus Waters Treaty is one of the most liberal water distribution agreements between the two countries. The pact was signed between India and Pakistan in September 1960 in Karachi by the then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistan President Ayub Khan.
- This agreement took nine years of negotiations and divides the control of six rivers between the two nations once signed.
- Under this treaty, India got control over:
- Beas
- Ravi
- Sutlej
- While Pakistan got control over:
- Indus
- Chenab
- Jhelum
- Under the treaty signed between India and Pakistan in 1960, all the waters of the three eastern rivers, averaging around 33 million acre-feet (MAF), were allocated to India for exclusive use.
- The waters of the western rivers – Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab – averaging to around 135 MAF, were allocated to Pakistan except for ‘specified domestic, non-consumptive and agricultural use permitted to India,’ according to the treaty.
WHY IS THE INDUS WATERS TREATY IMPORTANT FOR PAKISTAN?
- Indus, Chenab and Jhelum are the lifelines of Pakistan as the country is highly dependent on these rivers for its water supply. Since these rivers do not originate from Pakistan but flow to the country through India, Pakistan fears the threat of drought and famine.
- While Chenab and Jhelum originate from India, Indus originates from China, making its way to Pakistan via India.
- The Narendra Modi government has decided to up the ante against the terrorist state of Pakistan as it has now decided not to renew its 1989 agreement of sharing hydrological data of the Indus system of rivers during flood season with Pakistan.
WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF HYDROLOGICAL ANALYSIS IN FLOOD CONTROL?
- Every river has its own hydrological characteristics. No two rivers are the same in this world. Hence, if you want to control flood of a river, you must do some work in advance about analysing hydrological features of this river, such as annual runoff, historical maximum flow, etc.
- NOTES The agreement, a result of an earlier India’s goodwill gesture, was renewed every year.
- But the Indian position has changed, coinciding with heightened tensions over the abrogation of Jammu & Kashmir’s special status and the bifurcation of the state into two Union Territories. “This agreement was not renewed in the current year by us,” P K Saxena, Indian Commissioner for Indus Waters
PAKISTAN’S OUTCRY
- Meanwhile, Pakistan has accused India of having unleashed fifth-generation warfare against it and said that New Delhi failed to share the hydrological data on the waters of Sutlej river with Pakistan on time, leading to floods across the Islamic nation.
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