"India's Water weapon Diplomacy" Indus Water Treaty (IWT) ' A Food Security threat to Pakistan'

"India's Water weapon Diplomacy" Indus Water Treaty (IWT)

By; Shailesh Saxena

Over the years, water has been raised as an issue directly linked to Kashmir. Pakistan's political leaders and military elites have emphasized that if they are forced to let go of their claim to Kashmir, that will mean letting go of the source of Jhelum and Chenab as well as being at the mercy of India for water.
Pakistan will always keep up a drumbeat of totally false charges of non -  adherence on India towards the  IWT Though it is unrealistic to assume that India could readily and easily violate the terms of the Indus Water Treaty Since the treaty’s ratification in 1960, India and Pakistan fought three wars, but the flow of water was not hampered even for a single day.
The fact that, unlike India, all of Pakistan is wholly dependent upon the Indus River system is a geographical reality. Another reality that compounds this one is the fact that, as the upstream riparian on all five of the main Indus tributaries that flow into Pakistan, India has a strategically advantageous position in control and flow of water.

            Indus Water Treaty (IWT) was signed by Jawaharlal Nehru and Field Marshal Ayub Khan in Karachi on September 19, 1960. Under this agreement, control over three “eastern” rivers — Beas, Ravi and Sutlej — was given to India, while that over three “western” rivers — Indus, Chenab, and Jhelum — went to Pakistan. Since Pakistan’s rivers flow through India, the treaty allowed India to use them for irrigation, transport, and power generation, laying down precise regulations for Indian building projects along the way.

India’s prescriptive;

A  report by IWMI-Tata Water Policy Programme has revealed that the Indus Water Treaty signed by India and Pakistan in 1960 has put Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) behind by an estimated Rs 6,500 crore annually. The report also says that J&K's power generation and agriculture potential has been badly hit by the treaty.IWMI-Tata Water Policy Program was established in Anand through a partnership between the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Colombo, and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, Mumbai to carry out research work in  field of water management. The report was tabled at the recently concluded IWMI-Tata Water Policy Partner's Meet at Anand. The IWMI researcher F A Shaheen, in his report titled "Indus Water Treaty: Scrapped or Abrogated", states: "The treaty which was carried out in the best interests of the nation has, however, deprived J&K of using its own water resources and thereby severely affected development in the state. The treaty made Punjab prosperous by using the water of the eastern rivers for agriculture and power generation. This, however, put J&K behind by an estimated Rs 6,500 crore. The losses are not there in the agriculture sector alone but on a much higher scale in the generation of the hydropower which has an otherwise estimated potential of 20,000 MW."
As per  IWT India has the right to legitimate water requirements of J&K State for hydropower generation, deepening of rivers for navigation purposes, erecting protective bunds for floods, and building adequate water reserves for irrigation.  Environmental considerations also demand that the locally available hydel resources be utilized to the optimum to preserve and to maintain the deteriorating ecosystem in the State.  Already, various water bodies particularly the famous Dal Lake, Wullar Lake, and other aquatic systems have shrunk, thereby causing alarm.

Extreme  Grimes For Pakistan ; Pakistan’s agricultural performance is closely linked with the supply of irrigation water which uses 93 percent of its rivers water. The agricultural sector plays a key role in Pakistan’s economy. It is the largest sector, contributing over 21 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), and also the largest employer, providing jobs to 45 percent of the country’s labor force. Nearly 62% of the country’s population resides in rural areas and is directly or indirectly linked with agriculture for their livelihood. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) released a report earlier in 2013 year which declared Pakistan as one of the most “water-stressed” countries in the world, not far from being classified, as “water-scarce," with less than 1,000 cubic meters of water per person per year (the same level as parched Ethiopia), down from 5,000 cubic meters in 1947. ADB estimated that Pakistan's water storage capacity -- that is, the volume of water it can rely upon in case of an emergency, amounts to a 30-day supply -- far lower than the 1000 days that are suggested for nations with similar climates, The Atlantic noted. (For comparison sake, India’s storage capacity is 120 days.) Shamsul Mulk, the former chairman of Pakistan's Water and Power Development Authority, places the culpability squarely on incompetence and negligence by Islamabad. "Pakistan has acted like an absentee landlord vis-a-vis water reserves," he told UPI, adding that Pakistan has only constructed two large dams over the past 50 years -- and those are damaged by sedimentation. In contrast, China has built 22,000 dams during that period, while India has constructed about 4,000. The average annual flow of Western Rivers of Indus Basin is approximately 142 million acre feet (MAF). About 104 MAF of this water is diverted for irrigation purposes and about 35 million acre-feet outflows to the Arabian Sea.Another source of water is the rainfall. Irrigated areas of Indus Basin receive on average 40 million acres feet of water annually. For any sustainable irrigation system that is dependent on river water supplies, it is necessary to have a system of effluent disposal. However, when the British engineers designed and constructed the barrages and canals in Punjab and Sindh, they did not install an effluent disposal system. This lack of an effluent disposal system gave rise to the twin problems of water logging and salinity. The latest surveys SCARPs Pakistan is predominantly a dry land country with 27 percent soils having surface salinity and 39 percent Waterlogging, regions. The majority of its people depend on dryland salinity and sodality has reduced the drainage capacity area to support their livelihoods. No doubt, Pakistan’s soils result in lower soil fertility, the decline in crops Indus Basin System is one of the largest contiguous yields and loss of biodiversity.

 Pakistan’s water woes are exacerbated by factors like the government's erratic water management policies, poor infrastructure, and wasteful farming practices.
Pakistan ranked 11th on a list of the world’s Food Security Risk Index which placed it in the category of states at extreme risk. The number of people in Pakistan is considered “insecure” in terms of their food needs.
India has only reviewed the IWT until today, and India is not going to hamper the Indus water flow. Before time passes, Pakistan should rethink for the people of Pakistan “instead of passing the blame."
 Pakistan must look within to prevent waste and devise better management methods to reverse this looming crisis. If not tackled, the situation will worsen for Pakistan in the upcoming time, and Pakistan's negative power, breeding centers of thought, processes, and action, will abolish Pakistan in history as a Nation forever.