Dithering Pakistan's water woes

As Pakistan deals with the protests in Azad Kashmir, India's Minister of Water, CR Patil, has dropped a bombshell

As Pakistan deals with the protests in Azad Kashmir by the Awami Action Committee, India's Minister of Water, CR Patil, has dropped a bombshell.

"It is certain - not a single drop of water will go [to Pakistan] in the coming years. India is actively working on it after directives from Prime Minister Narendra Modi."

Patil's words, as quoted by the ANI news agency on June 10, point to unilateral river engineering by India. His remarks essentially unmask India's long-term planning - not necessarily designed only to choke Pakistan's waters. India, it seems, has already set up the legal framework to make this possible.

Pakistan's response? As usual Foreign Office spokesperson Tahir Andrabi reiterated that "any attempt to block or substantially curtail water that is vital to the livelihood, agriculture and well-being of over 250 million Pakistanis would be a deeply irresponsible act."

Three important developments since early May point to Pakistan's water woes.

On May 20, 2026, New Delhi floated tenders for an 8.7-kilometre-long tunnel in Himachal Pradesh, designed to divert at least two million acre feet annually from Chandra River - a major tributary of the Chenab - into the Beas basin. The project followed India's suspension of cooperation under the Indus Waters Treaty framework after the April 2025 terrorist attacks in Pahalgam.

One wonders how India and the Western media would have reacted had China announced it was building infrastructure to cut off every drop of water flowing to India, and its ministers proclaimed on television that "not a single drop" would cross the border. A hell would have broken loose in India and elsewhere.

Also in late May, Bangladesh approved one of the largest river engineering projects in its history: the Padma Barrage, a vast river-control project intended to restore water in the country's drought-prone southwest. Dhaka took this decision as the treaty governing Ganges water-sharing with India expires in December 2026.

On June 9, Indian engineers completed excavation work by blasting through the last 2.5 metres of rock, physically connecting both ends of the nearly 14-kilometre-long Zojila Tunnel in Ladakh - a project India embarked on after the 2020 clashes with Chinese troops in Galwan Valley. The Chenab is one of the main tributaries of the Indus, and one of the three "western rivers" – Indus, Jhelum and Chenab – allocated to Pakistan under the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty.

Simultaneously, the common neighbour and upper riparian, China, is also building the world's largest hydropower dam upstream on the Brahmaputra (Yarlung Tsangpo) in Tibet.

What is Pakistan doing to establish new or build up existing hydropower infrastructure? The answer is troubling.

Pakistan's dependence on water from India is near total: the country is essentially built around the Indus river system, all of whose rivers flow through India before entering Pakistan. The Indus system irrigates 80 per cent of Pakistan's farmland and generates a third of its electricity - despite India's unilateral suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, which contains no withdrawal clause.

Pakistan's major reservoirs remain Tarbela Dam (completed in 1976) and Mangla Dam (completed in 1967). Despite dramatic population growth, increasing water demand and repeated warnings about future shortages, no comparable mega-reservoir has been completed for decades. Projects such as Diamer-Bhasha Dam and Mohmand Dam have spent years - indeed decades - entangled in political disputes, funding shortages, bureaucratic delays and inter-provincial disagreements.

In India's case, the intent could not be clearer: it is proclaimed by ministers and backed by India's actions. But because India is a courted Western partner, what it is doing - arguably the most extreme form of economic warfare imaginable, directed at a nuclear state - is largely met with silence.

A comparison with India merits mention to highlight the diverging trajectories of the two countries. Around the turn of the century, India had over 4,000 large and medium-sized dams. By 2024, that number had exceeded 6,100 - a considerable addition over 25 years. The National Register of Large Dams indicates that India still has approximately 143 large dams under construction.

Pakistan's per-capita water availability has fallen sharply. Seasonal floods continue to devastate communities, while vast quantities of water flow unutilised into the Arabian Sea because of inadequate storage capacity. Agriculture remains heavily dependent on inefficient irrigation systems. Electricity consumers continue to bear the burden of expensive imported fuels, despite the country's enormous hydropower potential.

What makes Pakistan's position even more paradoxical is that India itself faces upstream pressures from China. Beijing controls the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra and has embarked on ambitious hydropower construction in Tibet. India has repeatedly expressed concern about Chinese dams, possible diversion schemes, environmental impacts, and the absence of robust data-sharing mechanisms. Yet despite these concerns, India has not allowed its disputes with China to become an excuse for neglecting its own domestic water infrastructure. Instead, it has accelerated investment in reservoirs, hydropower projects and water-management systems.

Bangladesh faces a similar dilemma but has chosen to invest in major engineering projects such as the Padma Barrage, rather than rely solely on diplomatic complaints.

Pakistan, on the contrary, is still driven more by deflection and finger-pointing than by genuinely strategic, technocratic approaches. An endemic preoccupation with short-term priorities, expediency even in matters critical to national well-being and an unending propensity for high-handed, security-centric solutions to political disputes continue to obscure long-term planning. No outsider can fix this malaise.