A 10-member Indian delegation will visit Pakistan for the annual meeting of the Permanent Indus Commission (PIC) from March 1-3.

Agenda this year

• Pakistan has some objections on Indian hydroelectric projects namely Pakal Dul (1,000 MW), Lower Kalnai (48 MW) and Kiru (624 MW) in Chenab basin in Jammu and Kashmir.
• Pakistan has raised objections on the design of these projects.
• India, however, asserts that the design of the project is fully compliant with the provisions of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT).

Permanent Indus Commission

• The PIC is a bilateral commission consisting of officials from India and Pakistan, created to implement and manage the goals and objectives, and outlines of the IWT.

Indus Waters Treaty, 1960

• The Indus Waters Treaty is a water-distribution treaty between India and Pakistan, brokered by the World Bank signed in Karachi in 1960.
• According to this agreement, control over the water flowing in three “eastern” rivers of India — the Beas, the Ravi and the Sutlej was given to India
• The control over the water flowing in three “western” rivers of India — the Indus, the Chenab and the Jhelum was given to Pakistan.

Rights accorded to India

• The treaty allowed India to use western rivers water for limited irrigation use and unrestricted use for power generation, domestic industrial and non-consumptive uses such as navigation, floating of property, fish culture, etc.
• It lays down precise regulations to build any water or hydel projects.
• India has been given the right to generate hydroelectricity through run-of-the-river projects on the western rivers subject to specific criteria for design and operation.
• The pact also gives the right to Pakistan to raise objections to designs of Indian hydroelectric projects on the western rivers.

Based on equitable water-sharing

• Back in time, partitioning the Indus rivers system was inevitable after the Partition of India in 1947.
• The sharing formula devised after prolonged negotiations sliced the Indus system into two halves.
• Equitable it may have seemed, but the fact remained that India conceded 80.52 percent of the aggregate water flows in the Indus system to Pakistan.
• It also gave Rs 83 crore in pounds sterling to Pakistan to help build replacement canals from the western rivers. Such generosity is unusual of an upper riparian.
• India conceded its upper riparian position on the western rivers for the complete rights on the eastern rivers.
• Water was critical for India’s development plans.

Significance of the treaty

• It is a treaty that is often cited as an example of the possibilities of peaceful coexistence that exist despite the troubled relationship.
• Well-wishers of the treaty often dub it “uninterrupted and uninterruptible”.
• The World Bank, which, as the third party, played a pivotal role in crafting the IWT, continues to take particular pride that the treaty functions.

Need for a rethink

• The role of India, as a responsible upper riparian abiding by the provisions of the treaty, has been remarkable.
• However, of late, India is under pressure to rethink the extent to which it can remain committed to the provisions, as its overall political relations with Pakistan becomes intractable.

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