India Ends Goodwill Gesture, Stops Sharing Hydrological Data with Pakistan

Taking the offensive, India has refused to renew its 1989 agreement of sharing hydrological data during flood season with Pakistan and told the neighbour that it would only provide information on “extraordinary discharges and flood flows.”

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, told TOI on Wednesday. The decision, however, has nothing to do with the Indus Water Treaty signed between India and Pakistan in 1960 for sharing waters of the Indus system. “India as a responsible nation is committed to the provisions of the IWT,” said Saxena.

Referring to the 1989 agreement to share hydrological data during flood season between July 1 to October 10, he said, “This was the arrangement beyond the IWT provisions as a gesture of goodwill from India. This arrangement was being renewed every year since 1989 with modifications as and when required.”

Asked about IWT, he said, “Under the Treaty provisions, India is required to provide advance information in regard to extraordinary discharges and flood flows. This is being done whenever the extraordinary flows are reached.”

Though Saxena didn’t elaborate, the move clearly appeared a fall out of the Pulwama terror attack in February and current tensions. India communicated its move to Pakistan on Tuesday – the day Union Jal Shakti (water resources) minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat expressed the country’s intent to fully utilise its share of water from Indus river system within the IWT rather than allowing it to flow into Pakistan. India was working on how its share of water that flows to Pakistan could be diverted for use by its own farmers, industries and people. “Work has already begun to stop the waters that flow into Pakistan (under IWT). I am talking about the water which is going to Pakistan, and I am not talking about breaking the Indus treaty,” Shekhawat was quoted as saying by a news agency in Mumbai. He said that the experts were working on the hydrological and techno-feasibility studies.

Under the IWT, waters of eastern rivers (Ravi, Beas and Sutlej) are allocated to India while the country is under obligation to let flow water of the western rivers (Indus, Jhelum and Chenab) to Pakistan. India can even use the water from the western rivers for its domestic purposes, irrigation and generating hydro-electric power to an extent.

Source: ET

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