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ON THE REGIONAL ISSUES

VOL XXVIII NO.3-2010

EMERGING CHALLENGES TO

INDUS WATERS TREATY

Issues of compliance & transboundary impacts of
Indian hydroprojects on the Western River

DR. SHAHEEN AKHTAR

Introduction

Water is becoming an existential issue for Pakistan. The country is facing a grim situation regarding its fast depleting fresh water resources. For Pakistan,

primarily an agrarian country, water becomes the most important of all the natural resources to be secured and managed. Being a single-basin country

Pakistan relies heavily on the Indus basin water to meet its domestic, agricultural and industrial needs. The growing population and rising temperature is

adding pressure on the growing water demands. Water emerged as a major fault line between Pakistan and India as the partition of British India in 1947

divided the Indus basin system. India emerged as an upper riparian with control over the canal head works that supplied water to vast lands which

became part of Pakistan, now a lower riparian. After protracted negotiations, mediated by the World Bank, India and Pakistan signed the Indus Waters

Treaty (IWT) in 1960that divided the rivers of the Indus basin system between the two countries. India gained full control over the three Eastern rivers

— the Ravi, the Beas and the Sutlej — while Pakistan was given exclusive rights on the western rivers, i.e. the Indus, the Jhelum and the Chenab.

The Treaty is often cited as a model settling water sharing conflict in an international river basin. It has survived...

Dr Shaheen Akhtar is Research Fellow at the Institute of Regional Studies.

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