India decides to stop water to Pakistan

Baghpat/New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) After withdrawing the most favoured nation (MFN) status and slamming a 200 per cent import duty, India on Thursday decided to stop the flow of its share of water from the three eastern rivers -- the Beas, Ravi and Sutlej -- to Pakistan.

"Under the leadership of (Prime Minister Narendra Modi), our government has decided to stop our share of water, which used to flow to Pakistan. We will divert water from eastern rivers and supply it to people in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab," Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari said in a tweet.

In another tweet, he said construction of a dam had started at Shahpur-Kandi on Ravi river. Moreover, the Ujh project will store India's share of water for use in J&K and the rest will flow from the second Ravi-Beas Link to provide water to other basin states. All these projects have been declared as the national projects, he added.

Thursday's announcement comes on top of actions like withdrawal of MFN status to Pakistan and slapping of a 200 per cent duty on all imports from Pakistan in the wake of the Pulwama suicide bombing that killed 40 CRPF troopers and which was claimed by the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).

India has sent enough message to Pakistan that it will not be business as usual and that the February 14 terror attack would be avenged.

Meanwhile, speaking at a public meeting in Baghpat, Gadkari said after partition India got three rivers but their water were flowing to Pakistan. "Water will be diverted to Yamuna. It means, there will be more water in Yamuna," he said.

Under the Indus Waters Treaty between India and Pakistan control over the water flowing in three "eastern" rivers of India -- the Beas, the Ravi and the Sutlej with the mean flow of 33 million acre-feet (MAF) -- was given to India.

While control over the water flowing in three "western" rivers of India -- the Indus, the Chenab and the Jhelum with the mean flow of 80 MAF -- was given to Pakistan.

The government had in December 2018 cleared the proposal to implement the Shapur Kandi Dam Project in Punjab on Ravi for which Rs. 485 crore central assistancewould be provided from 2018-19 to 2022-23.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had then said the project was cleared by the cabinet, which would minimise some of the water flow of Ravi, currently going waste through the Madhopur Headworks downstream to Pakistan.