Pakistan Stares At Crop-Sowing Crisis As India's Indus Treaty Suspension Dries Out Major Dams
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Pakistan reportedly faces a severe water crisis with low dam levels, putting its kharif crop season on the danger. This comes as India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty.
A couple of days after Minister of State for Environment Kirti Vardhan Singh said Pakistan was violating the Indus Water Treaty through terrorism, a report has claimed the neighbouring country was in a crop-sowing crisis since dams there were drying out.
According to a report with The Times Of India, water level in two key dams in Pakistan, Mangla on River Jhelum and Tarbela on Indus, are running low, driving Pakistan to stare at a bleak kharif sowing season.
Following the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, which killed 26 people, India announced the suspension of the Indus Water Treaty as part of several punitive measures against Pakistan.
The Indus Waters Treaty, signed in 1960 between India and Pakistan with the World Bank as a signatory, governs the sharing of the Indus River system's waters between the two countries.
According to the report, the latest estimates by Pakistan's Indus River System Authority, the country is already facing an overall shortage of 21 per cent in water flow and nearly 50 per cent in live storage from the two key dams.
The condition probably drove Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to say at the International Conference on Glaciers' Preservation that his country would not allow India to cross the red line by holding the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance and endangering millions of lives for narrow political gains.
'India's unilateral and illegal decision to hold in abeyance the Indus Waters Treaty, which governs the sharing of the Indus Basin's water, is deeply regrettable," Pakistani newspaper Dawn quoted Sharif as saying.
Last week, India reiterated that any engagement with Pakistan will only be bilateral; terror and talks cannot go together; and that the Indus Waters Treaty will remain in abeyance until Pakistan 'credibly and irrevocably abjures" its support for cross-border terrorism.
The Ministry of External Affairs' strong response came at a time when Pakistan, pushed on the backfoot by India's decisive 'Operation Sindoor', has suddenly started talking about its intent on having peace talks with India.
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