India Has Started Work On Stopping Excess River Waters Flowing Into Pakistan: Union Jal Shakti Minister

Union Minister for Jal Shakti Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Tuesday (21 August) said that the government has begun the process of stopping the waters flowing into Pakistan without violating the Indus Water Treaty, reports Times of India.

"Work has already begun to stop the waters that flow into Pakistan. I am talking about the water which is going to Pakistan, and I am not talking about breaking the Indus water treaty,” Shekhawat said.

As per the Indus Water Treaty, the control of the Beas, the Ravi and the Sutlej river vests with India while Pakistan controls the Indus, the Chenab and the Jhelum. As the Pakistani rivers receive more waters from India, the treaty allows New Delhi to use the Indus, the Chenab and the Jhelum waters for limited irrigation and unlimited use of power generation, domestic, industrial and non-consumptive use.

The ministry reportedly aims to capture the unused water from those rivers and use them during the leaner seasons by diverting the excess waters to the Ravi river as the existing reservoirs are already full to the brim at the moment.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has accused India of having unleashed a 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.