The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) is a water-distribution treaty between India and Pakistan to use the water available in the Indus River system in the territories of the two countries. The treaty was negotiated by India and Pakistan with the mediation of World Bank and signed in Karachi on 19 September 1960 by Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistani president Ayub Khan. It classifies six major rivers of the Indus Basin into two categories, and gives India control over the waters of the three “Eastern Rivers”—the Beas, Ravi and Sutlej—which have a total mean annual flow of 33 million acre ft (41 billion m3), while control over the three “Western Rivers”—the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum—which have a total mean annual flow of 135 million acre ft (167 billion m3), was given to Pakistan.
India received control of roughly 20% of the total water carried by the rivers, while Pakistan received 80%. The treaty allows India to use the water of Western Rivers for limited irrigation use and unlimited non-consumptive uses such as power generation, navigation, floating of property, fish culture, etc. It lays down detailed regulations for India in building projects over the Western Rivers. The preamble of the treaty recognizes the rights and obligations of each country for the optimum water use from the Indus system of rivers in a spirit of goodwill, friendship and cooperation. The treaty is also meant to alleviate Pakistani fears that India could potentially cause floods or droughts in Pakistan, especially during a potential conflict.
The Indus Waters Treaty is considered one of the most successful water sharing endeavors in the world today, even though analysts acknowledge the need to update certain technical specifications and expand the scope of the agreement to address climate change.
On 23 April 2025, following the Pahalgam terrorist attack, the Government of India suspended the treaty, citing national security concerns and Pakistan’s support of state-sponsored terrorism. (Wikipedia)
The Indian Panorama brings to its readers a perspective on the Indus Water Treaty.
Pradeep Kumar Saxena is a prominent Central Water Engineering Services Officer with over three decades of exemplary service in water resources management and international water treaties.
He has spent two decades in planning and designing hydropower projects in India, Afghanistan and Nepal.
Saxena has over seventeen year association with the Indus Waters Treaty in various capacities. He was a member of India’s team during the Kishenganga Arbitration (2010-2013), which successfully secured India’s right to construct the dam. He represented the nation as Indian Commissioner for Indus Waters (2016-2022) in numerous engagements with Pakistan and the World Bank. – EDITOR
Part I: The Architecture of Inequity — How India’s Goodwill Was Codified into Concession
Background: The Partition of a River System
The Indus River System comprises six major rivers—the Indus, Chenab, Jhelum, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej—flowing through the territories of both India and Pakistan. The system sustains drinking water, agriculture, and electricity generation across the Indus Basin, supporting hundreds of millions of people on both sides of the border.
When British India was partitioned in 1947, the Indus River System was also divided between the two successor states. The geographic reality was stark: India, as the upper riparian state, held the headwaters of most rivers, while Pakistan’s agricultural heartland—the heavily irrigated Punjab plains—depended critically on continued water flows from the east. India, for its part, required access to the system for its own development objectives in Punjab and Rajasthan, while seeking stability and normalized relations with its new western neighbor. Despite its own pressing domestic needs, India concluded this highly concessionary water-sharing pact with Pakistan on 19 September 1960, an agreement facilitated by the World Bank.
Negotiations – India paid the price for rationality
Pakistan’s Strategy of Delay and the 1954 World Bank Proposal
The trajectory of the negotiations was shaped, from the outset, by the asymmetry between India’s reasonable and constructive approach and Pakistan’s maximalist, sometimes absurd, demands — an asymmetry that anchored outcomes far more favorably to Pakistan than equity would have warranted. The World Bank’s first substantive proposal of 5 February 1954 illustrates this plainly: even at this initial stage, it required significant one-sided concessions from India:
- All planned Indian developments along the upper reaches of both the Indus and Chenab were to be abandoned, with those benefits accruing to Pakistan instead
- India was required to forgo diverting approximately 6 MAF from the Chenab River.
- No Chenab waters at Merala (now in Pakistan) would be available for Indian use.
- No water development would be permitted in Kutch from the river system.
Despite these considerable impositions, India accepted the proposal in good faith almost immediately, signaling its genuine desire for a speedy resolution. Pakistan, by contrast, delayed its formal acceptance for nearly five years until 22 December 1958. As a result of this goodwill gesture of India, the restrictions were imposed on her while Pakistan continued developing new uses on the Western rivers without equivalent constraints. Pakistan absorbed the lesson that obstruction pays and cooperation costs—and has applied this lesson consistently ever since.
What India Lost: The Scale of Sacrifice
The Water Allocation
Under the Treaty’s allocation formula, India received exclusive rights to the three Eastern rivers—the Sutlej, Beas, and Ravi—while Pakistan received rights to the waters of the three Western rivers—the Indus, Chenab, and Jhelum. India was permitted certain limited, non-consumptive uses of the Western rivers within its own territory, primarily for run-of-river hydropower generation, subject to extensive design and operational restrictions.
In volumetric terms, the Eastern rivers allocated to India carry approximately 33 million acre-feet (MAF) of annual flow, while the Western rivers allocated to Pakistan carry approximately 135 MAF—giving Pakistan roughly 80 percent of the system’s water. India received 20 percent, in exchange for relinquishing all claim to the vastly larger Western system. The critical point is that India did not gain new water from the agreement. What India received was formal acknowledgment of flows it already accessed, in exchange for relinquishing all claim to the far larger Western system. India was permitted certain non-consumptive uses of the Western rivers within its territory—primarily run-of-river hydropower generation.
The Financial Concession: Paying to Give Away Water
Perhaps the most striking anomaly of the Treaty is the financial provision. India agreed to pay approximately £62 million (approximately $2.5 billion in present value) as compensation to Pakistan to build water resources infrastructure in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. This payment represents a unique precedent in which the upstream country, which was already surrendering the majority of the system’s water, additionally paid the downstream country for the “privilege” of doing so. India essentially subsidized Pakistan’s acceptance of a deal that heavily favored Pakistan on the fundamental question of water allocation.
The Treaty’s Structural Unfairness
Unilateral Asymmetric Restrictions on India
The Treaty imposes a series of specific design and operational restrictions on India’s use of the Western rivers that have no corresponding obligations on Pakistan’s side:
- India can develop only a limited Irrigated Cropped Area (ICA) in its territory.
- India faces strict limits on the volume of water that can be held in any storage facility on the Western rivers.
- India must comply with specific design criteria for any hydropower facilities on the Western rivers, including restrictions on pondage and storage capacity.
These restrictions are one-directional: they constrain India’s lawful development of resources within its own territory while imposing no equivalent transparency or restriction requirements on Pakistan. The result is a treaty that treats the upstream state—India—as the party requiring oversight and restraint, while the downstream state benefits from guaranteed flows.
(Please also read “Part 2: Obstruction, Exploitation and the Long-Overdue Reckoning” on the next page)
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