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Goaltide Daily News 2021

Jul 30, 2021

News 1:

no manual scavenging deaths in last five years , govt tells house

News 2:

Indus Waters Treaty is worth preserving

On July 5, the Indian Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat was reported to have said “India is working on exercising its rights to stop excess water flowing to Pakistan, under the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, to irrigate its own lands.” Indian government sources have made similar observations in the past and Pakistani officialdom has often said that India has not acted fairly in sharing waters according to this Treaty.

The awkwardly titled “Treaty between the Government of India and the Government of Pakistan concerning the most complete and satisfactory utilisation of the waters of the Indus system of rivers” was signed over 60 years ago on September 19, 1960. Uniquely, the two signatories were India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistani President Mohammad Ayub Khan. This lengthy 27,733-word agreement has come to be known as the Indus Waters Treaty. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) is the go-to entity for clarifications and dispute settlement. The full text of the Treaty is available at the Ministry of External Affairs’ website: mea.gov.in.

Prior to 1947, East and West Punjab had criss-crossing irrigation arrangements. Post-partition it was necessary to decide how the waters of Punjab, the land of five rivers —the Sutlej, Ravi, Beas, Chenab and Jhelum— were to be apportioned between India and Pakistan. Punjab has a long history of blood feuds even between close relatives due to disagreements on supply of water to their agricultural lands. Despite this background of water disputes, the human cost of partition, charges and counter-accusations of farmers in East Punjab (India) and West Punjab (Pakistan), the heads of government of the two nations were able to arrive at a comprehensive agreement to share the river waters of the region. A simple reading of the Treaty provides for waters of the Eastern rivers, the Sutlej, Ravi and Beas, to be used by India. And, Pakistan has the use of the waters of the western rivers, the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum. Only a full reading of the Treaty provides an understanding of the multiplicity of issues covered in it. For example, about hydrological observation stations, mechanisms for interaction between experts and annexures detailing the number of cusecs of water that each side can access.

According to some reports, just the Chenab and Jhelum have a potential of generating at least 8,000 MW of hydroelectricity and only about 2,000 MW has been tapped till now. For example, the 900-MW Baglihar (BHPP) project on the Chenab was executed by the Jammu & Kashmir Development Corporation. Construction began in 1999 and BHPP was commissioned in 2008. The Tulbul Navigational Lock, as it is called in India, or the Wular Lake Barrage project, as it is referred to in Pakistan, is located close to Sopore on the Jhelum, about 45 kilometres to the north-west of Srinagar. The discussions about using such a project for providing irrigation waters to agricultural fields downstream were first held in 1912 when the then Punjab government approached the Kashmir Durbar. Nothing ever came out of that initiative, demonstrating how difficult it is to arrive at any arrangement for sharing the waters of Punjab’s rivers. The National Hydroelectric Power Corporation’s (NHPC) run-of-the-river hydroelectric projects Uri-I (480 MW) and Uri-II (240 MW) are located on the Jhelum in the Baramulla district and were commissioned in March 1997 and July 2014, respectively. More important than irrigation waters, the Tulbul project would probably better regulate the flow of waters and improve the working of URI-I & II.

Another run-of-the-river power project is the Salal power station on the Chenab, which was first conceived in 1920. Construction began in 1970 and the two stages of this 690 MW project were completed in 1987 and 1995. The Salal power station is operated by NHPC and is currently running at around 50 per cent capacity. The Chenab is one the western rivers allocated to Pakistan and although hydroelectric projects on it are allowed within India, Pakistan had to be consulted as per the Indus Waters Treaty. According to Indian commentators, reduction in the height of the dam due to Pakistan’s concerns about downstream flooding has sharply reduced capacity utilisation of this power plant. On this subject of concerns about sharing of waters for irrigation, experts in India and Pakistan should assess how much of the waters in the East and West rivers are snow or rain-fed within their respective territories. Such estimates would add to the accuracy of each side’s dependence on the other in sharing the waters of these rivers.

In times of extreme stress between India and Pakistan, for example, the November 2008 attack on Mumbai by Pakistani terrorists, otherwise reasonable commentators raise the issue of an unfair allocation of waters between India and Pakistan and even promote the notion that India should abrogate this Treaty. The record shows that this agreement has stood the test of time and professionals from both sides have ironed out whatever differences have cropped up to mutual satisfaction. Given the unblemished record of this Treaty, it behoves India, particularly as the upper riparian country, to be extremely careful to clarify exactly to what extent India is not yet using its fair share of waters from the three Eastern rivers namely, the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej. If indeed India is not using as much water from the Eastern rivers as it is entitled to, Indian experts should discuss how they have arrived at this conclusion with their Pakistani counterparts. Further, the India side should also make public its estimates of unutilised hydropower. By contrast, a periodic rattling of Pakistan’s cage is counterproductive. It has to be a matter of regret that India-Pakistan have not consulted adequately to raise the production of hydropower, cash crops, including fruits and flowers, and promoted riverine transportation to use the East and West rivers to their fullest potential.