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Shahpurkandi Dam: India-Pakistan experts advocate cooperation for water security
NESA Center alum Uttam Kumar Sinha contributed to The Third Pole's article, "Shahpurkandi Dam: India-Pakistan experts advocate cooperation for water security," published on 9 March 2024.
In the article, Sinha discusses the implications of the Shahpurkandi Dam and the importance of collaboration under the Indus Waters Treaty.
Introduction:
As the Shahpurkandi barrage on the river Ravi in the Indian state of Punjab nears completion, there are fears in downstream Pakistan. The dam, proposed three decades ago, has the potential to irrigate 5,000 hectares of agricultural land in Punjab and over 32,000 hectares in Jammu and Kashmir on the Indian side. But the dam will stop any flow of river water to downstream Pakistan, with newspaper headlines being largely dominated by accusations of ‘water war-mongering’.
The Ravi is part of the six rivers of the Indus basin that are governed by the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT). Signed in 1960 between the two countries, the IWT is one of only two major transboundary water treaties in South Asia (the other being the 1996 Ganges treaty), considered one of the great successes of water diplomacy.
The Third Pole invited two experts – Erum Sattar of Pakistan and Uttam Kumar Sinha from India – to weigh in on what the development means for the IWT as well as the long-term impacts on the Indus basin in ecological terms.
About the Alum
Uttam Kumar Sinha is a Senior Fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, author, and leading scholar and commentator on transboundary rivers, climate change, and the Arctic.
About the Publisher
The Third Pole is a multilingual platform dedicated to promoting information and discussion about the Himalayan watershed and the rivers that originate there.
The views presented in this article are those of the speaker or author and do not necessarily represent the views of DoD or its components.