Water Politics in South Asia: A Critique of Indus Waters Treaty, 1960. by Abdul Waheed

Author:Abdul Waheed [Waheed, Abdul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2018-07-29T22:00:00+00:00

Water Scenario in India. India is a large and densely populated country of South Asia.

Due to its larger population it faces acute shortage of water. Increasing population constantly increases the food and other demands of the people. These needs and demands are directly and indirectly related with the water. Hence ultimately water demand is also being increased by pushing the country towards water scarcity. In the following lines we would try to assess the water demand and availability in India so that we become able to analyze whether this scarcity of water in India would draw Indian attention towards the Western Rivers of the Indus Basin which had been given to Pakistan through Indus Basin Treaty.

Surface Water: Indian mainland is drained by many small and large rivers and streams. Among the rivers 15 are regarded as major each having more than 20000 km³ drainage basin area. 45 rivers have been included in medium category each having the drainage basin area between 2000 to 20000 km³ and the minor rivers in India are 120 each with less than 2000 km³ drainage basin area.75 All these rivers are grouped into east flowing and west flowing rivers and separated into 19 major river basins.

The river system of India can be classified into Deccan Rivers, Himalayan Rivers, Coastal Rivers and Rivers of inland drainage basins. Himalayan rivers include Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra. Snow and glaciers are the main source of these rivers. 55 % basin area is

73 Rauf A.Iqbal, “Water Wars and Navigating Peace over Indus River Basin”, Institute for Strategic Studies,

Research and Analysis, National Defense University, Islamabad, 1-13.

74 Khan, F. (2009). Water, Governance, and Corruption in Pakistan. Running on Empty, 2003(2010), 2025, 96.

75 Smakhtin, V. Y., & Anputhas, M. (2006). An Assessment of Environmental Flow Requirements of Indian River

Basins (No. H039610). Colombo: International Water Management Institute. occupied by snow while 45% basin area is rain fed.76 The Deccan Rivers are rain-fed and fluctuate in flow. Many of them are non-perennial. The coastal rivers are mostly at western coast, having small catchment area, and most of them are also non- perennial.77

Indian average annual surface flow generated by snowmelt and rainfall is estimated at 1869 BCM, however only 37%,78 water, 690 km³,79 is utilizable because 90 % of the rivers generating in Himalaya rise in flow for only four months. India, at the stage, has not enough potential to capture these resources. Though, there is a huge potential of increasing the surface water in the Ganga-Bharmaputra basins, by building the water storages.

Groundwater Resources: The total annual potential for recharge of groundwater from rain water in India is 342.42 km³ which is 8.56 % of total water resources of India. It is 89.46 km³ from canal irrigation system, 15 % ground water is used for drinking purposes while 6 km³ for industrial purposes and remaining for irrigation use.

Table: 3.5. Basin wise average flow and utilizable water (in km³/year) (Indian)

S.No River Basin 1 Indus

2 Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna Basin

3 Subarnarekha

4

2a Ganga

Brahmni-Baitarani

5 2bMahanadiBramaputra sub basin 6 Godavari

2c Meghna Basin7 Krishna 8 Pennar

9 Cauvery

10 Tapi

11 Narmada

12 Mahi

Average Utilizable

Annual Annual Flow

flow

12.

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