India speeds up Indus projects, rebuts Pak's victim card over treaty suspension
India is stepping up work on multiple projects in the Indus basin, countering Pakistan's vehement and consistent victimhood narrative to berate New Delhi over the
India is stepping up work on multiple projects in the Indus basin, countering Pakistan's vehement and consistent victimhood narrative to berate New Delhi over the decision to suspend the water treaty, officials told India Today. Besides, India is open, at least in theory, to the option of exiting the treaty if required, citing raison d’etat (reason of state) wherein a nation's foreign policy is purely influenced by its interests and stability. Read Full Story According to a senior government official, projects at various stages of implementation in Jammu and Kashmir are expected to add around 5,300 MW of capacity, against the Indus basin's existing operational capacity of 3,300 MW. India has accelerated several projects since suspending the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) with Pakistan after the Pahalgam massacre last year, with Pakal Dul and Kiru likely to be completed this year. Additionally, Kwar and Ratle hydroelectric projects are expected to be operational next year. All these projects are based in the Kishtwar district of J&K. India has also restarted work on the Tulbul Navigation Project in J&K's Sopore, which Pakistan has opposed for decades and was stalled by Islamabad in 1987 citing the water treaty. Emphasising the raison d'etat, a senior official said that India cannot be "compelled to stay in a treaty that is demonstrably not in New Delhi's interest". The official further said that any future renegotiation of the treaty would not restore the pact "in its present form" and needs to be renegotiated in a modified format subject to Islamabad credibly and irrevocably halting its support for terrorism against India.
Officials told India Today that New Delhi sought renegotiation under Article XII(3) in 2023 and renewed that invitation both before and after the Pahalgam attack, but has received no substantive response from Islamabad. Government sources told India Today that New Delhi has so far shared details of as many as 79 projects with Pakistan under the treaty's provisions and that Islamabad has historically objected to nearly all of them, irrespective of scale. Senior officials said the first objection came in 1962, barely two years after the treaty was signed, over a project of just 200 kilowatts. That dispute took nine years to resolve despite what officials said was a negligible impact on downstream flows. Officials also pointed to what they described as a double standard on reservoir maintenance. The Salal Dam on River Chenab is now nearly 95 per cent silted, leaving barely 5 per cent usable storage and well below its designed power-generation capacity, they said. To recover some of this capacity, India uses flushing and de-silting techniques that have previously been endorsed by international experts. However, Pakistan routinely objects to these techniques in Indian project filings despite using identical methods on its own reservoirs. Officials said data from the Indus Water Commission presents a picture sharply at odds with Pakistan's claims on the treaty. Pakistan receives an estimated 135–140 MAF of water annually but has the canal capacity to divert only about 104 MAF.
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