Pakistan is ready to discuss the Indus Water Treaty — but what does India want?

Pakistan’s initial reaction to India suspending the Indus Water Treaty of 1960 was to raise the dispute in international fora like the UN, the International Court of Justice, the World Bank and the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The response of its water resources secretary, voicing willingness to discuss , as reported by The Indian Express on 15 May 2025 is therefore a significant departure.

India has been seeking to re-negotiate the Indus Water Treaty of the 1960 vintage for the past several years. Now that Pakistan’s water resources secretary Syed Ali Murtaza has offered to discuss the terms of the IWT that India objects to, India is likely to grab the opportunity to insist that water sharing of the Indus rivers must be a bilateral issue. The treaty itself was brokered by the World Bank and the dispute resolution mechanism should be reviewed and modified to keep out .

Currently, any disputes related to the Indus Water Treaty are resolved by an international court of arbitration or a ‘neutral expert’ decided by the World Bank. Pakistan’s objections over the Kishanganga and Ratle hydroelectric projects in India were referred to a neutral expert, who ruled in favour of Pakistan. Dissatisfied with the current mechanism, India is expected to move for a different and graded bilateral mechanism.

When India announced after the Pahalgam terror attack that it was keeping the Indus Water Treaty in abeyance and the water resources minister vowed not to allow a drop of water to flow into Pakistan, Pakistan had reacted sharply.

Aqeel Malik, the minister of state for law and justice in Pakistan, had told Reuters that there were three legal options, which included raising the issue at the World Bank, taking action at the Permanent Court of Arbitration or at the International Court of Justice in the Hague and raising the issue at the UN Security Council.

Suspending the treaty gave India the leverage to stop sharing water flow data, flush reservoirs on the Indian side and make design changes in the existing hydel power plants and to start new projects without any restriction. On paper, it could also hold water during the dry period and release it during the high monsoon, causing both drought and floods in Pakistan.

Under the IWT, India is permitted to store up to 3.60 million acre-feet (MAF) of water, develop 1.34 million acres of irrigation land in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, and construct run-of-the-river dams on the western rivers.

However, India has currently a storage capacity of only around 1 MAF and has developed irrigation for only about 0.642 million acres in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. Even on the eastern rivers — Sutlej, Beas and Ravi — India has been unable to utilise more than 90 per cent of the water allocated under the IWT.

India’s hydroelectric projects on the western rivers, such as the Kishanganga Hydroelectric Project, the Ratle Dam, the Salal Dam, the Nimoo Bazgo and the Baglihar Dam, aim to harness the water resources of the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab rivers to generate electricity, utilising India’s allocated share of water under the IWT.

These projects have varying storage capacities, although upcoming projects such as the Ratle Dam, Kiru Dam and Pakal Dul Dam will further tap into the water of the Chenab and its tributaries. However, India lacks the massive storage infrastructure required to actually hold back large volumes of water during high-flow periods.

It was significant that India kept the IWT “in abeyance”, realising that weaponising water would not be taken kindly by other countries, especially China and Bangladesh.

India’s MoU on data sharing with China on the Sutlej and Brahmaputra rivers has expired and is in the process of renewal.

Although India and Bangladesh have agreed to renew the Ganga Water Treaty, set to expire in 2026, India’s decision on the IWT may cast a shadow over it too.

Sections of public opinion in Nepal and Sri Lanka have also begun cautioning their respective governments to exercise caution in signing agreements with India, seen by them as an unreliable neighbour.