Union Home Minister Amit Shah held a meeting on Friday to discuss how quickly the decision could be implemented and finalise a detailed roadmap, which included speedy desilting of rivers and dams as an immediate step to prevent the flow of river waters to the neighbouring country. This came a day after India formally informed Pakistan that it was keeping the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) between the two countries indefinite.
According to reports, the meeting, which was attended by senior officials and Jal Shakti minister C R Paatil, covered implementation strategies for building more water storage infrastructure and accelerating hydropower project development as medium- and long-term measures to ensure that India can responsibly use the waters of the western rivers, the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab.
River and dam desilting will be prioritised.It will increase the water supply to India, which will result in a slightly smaller flow to Pakistan, which currently has a 32% deficit in meeting its drinking and irrigation water needs.While in the meeting, a roadmap was created.While in the meeting, a roadmap was created.Three possibilities were discussed. In order to prevent even a drop of water from entering Pakistan, the government is working on short-, medium-, and long-term solutions.”Rivers will soon be desilted to divert and stop the water,” Paatil told the media afterwards the meeting.
India currently lacks the capacity to store even 3.6 MAF of water on its western rivers, which is the portion that was granted to it under the IWT. In a similar vein, India has built a 3,482 MW hydropower generation capacity out of an estimated 20,000 MW of power potential that can be obtained from the western rivers.The issue will be mostly resolved by accelerating the Kishanganga and Ratle hydroelectric projects.One of the main issues that caught the attention of policymakers was the unrealised potential for irrigation, particularly with regard to maximising the use of water from the western rivers.India must expand its storage capacity and reroute excess flow from J&K to Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan in order to realise this potential.
The Tulbul project on Jhelum, which has been on hold since 1986, will be beneficial because the accompanying barrage will be able to store about 0.3 MAF of water.
