India causes staggering losses to Pakistan

VIOLATIONS of Indus Basin Water Treaty by India is assuming alarming dimensions and the situation calls for urgent measures to safeguard crucial interests of the country. A report prepared by the Engineers Study Forum has revealed that India is stealing 15-20% of water from Western rivers causing $12 billion losses to the agriculture of Pakistan annually.

The report throws light only on one aspect of the Indian strategies to inflict damage on Pakistan. Apart from the losses to its economy on account of stoppage of its share of water, India is also causing huge invisible losses to Pakistan because of its crude interference in the internal affairs of the country. It is harbouring terrorism and acts of sabotage in Balochistan and FATA and has always adopted a hostile posture towards Pakistan forcing it to spend more on law and order, security and defence of the country. However, coming back to the water issue, the Indus Water Commissioner of Pakistan has stated the other day that Pakistan would take up the issue of reduced inflows in Jhelum and Chenab with the visiting Indian delegation that is here for inspection of water projects. It is understood that the visit is not strictly aimed at holding negotiations on this serious issue as it is of routine nature to inspect water site, yet the issue needs to be addressed seriously as reduced flow of water has already triggered a row between Punjab and Sindh because of less availability of water for the current crop. India is constructing a number of water reservoirs both on Chenab and Jhelum and it is feared that after their completion it would be in a position to stop every drop of water, turning Pakistan’s fertile lands into barren deserts. We would, therefore, support demand of the Engineers’ Forum that the Government should not only lodge a claim with the United Nations, World Bank and International Court of Justice of billions of dollars in terms of loss caused to the agriculture of the country but also initiate legal and diplomatic offensive to safeguard our water rights.

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on Feb 10 2010. Filed under Editorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry