Chenab Hydropower Push: India Advances Projects Amid IWT Abeyance

The Indus Waters Treaty, 1960 — Anatomy of a Six-Decade Compact

Concluded after nearly nine years of World Bank-mediated negotiations, the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) was signed at Karachi on September 19, 1960 by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for India and President Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan for Pakistan, with W.A.B. Iliff signing on behalf of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) — today’s World Bank. The Bank is not a full party to the treaty but is a signatory to limited provisions, principally those relating to dispute resolution (Article IX) and the financing of replacement works in Pakistan.

Allocation of the Six Rivers

The treaty partitioned the six rivers of the Indus system between the two countries on a broadly territorial basis — eastern tributaries to India, western mainstem and tributaries to Pakistan.

MAF = Million Acre Feet.

India’s Permitted Uses on Western Rivers

Under Article III read with Annexures C, D and E, India retains substantial rights on the Western rivers even though the bulk of the flow is committed to Pakistan:

• Domestic and non-consumptive use (navigation, fishing, recreation).
• Agricultural use up to a ceiling of 7,01,000 acres of irrigated cropped area.
• Run-of-the-river hydroelectric generation, with Annexure D laying down detailed design constraints on pondage, spillway gates, freeboard, and intake elevation.
• Storage up to 3.6 MAF on the Western rivers — a quantum that India has historically left largely unutilised.

Three-Tier Dispute Resolution under Article IX

The architecture envisages a graduated escalation: most issues are to be resolved by the Commission; technical differences may proceed to a Neutral Expert; and only legal questions of treaty interpretation may be referred to a Court of Arbitration.

India’s Abeyance Decision of April 2025

On April 23, 2025, the Secretary, Ministry of Jal Shakti formally communicated to Pakistan’s Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources that India was placing the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance. The decision came one day after the Pahalgam terror attack of April 22, 2025, in which civilians were killed in the Baisaran meadow.

India’s Stated Position

India’s communication and subsequent official statements emphasised that the IWT was “concluded in the spirit of goodwill and friendship” recited in its preamble, and that sustained cross-border terrorism sponsored from Pakistani soil vitiated this foundational premise. Operationally, abeyance has meant:

• Suspension of data-sharing on river flows, project design particulars, and flood-season inflows.
• Non-convening of the Permanent Indus Commission.
• No prior notification of new project designs on Western rivers as previously required under Annexure D, Paragraph 9.
• Reservation of the right to develop full storage and irrigation entitlements without conventional treaty review.

“Abeyance” — A Sui Generis Status

It is important to note what the decision is not. India has not formally abrogated or terminated the treaty. “Abeyance” is not a category recognised expressly in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT), 1969, which India has signed but not ratified. The closest doctrinal anchors lie in:

• Article 60 VCLT — termination or suspension in response to a material breach by another party.
• Article 61 VCLT — supervening impossibility of performance.
• Article 62 VCLT — fundamental change of circumstances (rebus sic stantibus).

India has not invoked any of these articles formally. “Abeyance” is therefore an Indian designation — an operational suspension rather than a legal exit. Pakistan, for its part, has confined its response to political and diplomatic channels and has not approached the International Court of Justice, which it could not in any case do without India’s consent, given that India’s declaration under Article 36(2) of the ICJ Statute excludes disputes with Commonwealth states.

The May 15, 2026 Court of Arbitration Award

The CoA constituted at Pakistan’s request in 2022 has been examining the maximum pondage permissible on Indian run-of-river projects on the Chenab and Jhelum systems, with Kishanganga and Ratle as the test cases.

What is “Pondage”?

Pondage is the limited storage of water behind a barrage to permit a hydroelectric plant to operate at peak load during high-demand hours, releasing water during off-peak hours. It is distinct from “live storage”, which permits seasonal regulation of flow. Annexure D, Paragraph 8© of the IWT caps pondage at twice the daily Pondage required for firm power, but the precise interpretation has been contested.

The May 15 Ruling

The CoA’s supplemental award tilted toward Pakistan’s narrower reading of permissible pondage, effectively constraining India’s peaking flexibility on the two projects. India’s response, conveyed through the Ministry of External Affairs, was a categorical rejection on two grounds:

1. The treaty being in abeyance, India does not recognise the continuing competence of the CoA.
2. A parallel Neutral Expert process under the World Bank-appointed Michel Lino had, in its January 2025 award, held that the same questions fell within the Neutral Expert’s exclusive jurisdiction — making the CoA proceedings, in India’s view, forum-shopped and coram non judice.

India’s Chenab-Basin Hydro Portfolio

The Chenab basin, with its steep gradient and high discharge, hosts the bulk of India’s potential and operational run-of-river capacity on Western rivers.

CVPP = Chenab Valley Power Projects Ltd.; JKSPDC = J&K State Power Development Corporation; NHPC = National Hydroelectric Power Corporation.

Strategic Significance

• Untapped potential: J&K’s assessed hydro potential is ~20,000 MW; only about 3,500 MW (~17%) has been harnessed.
• Energy transition fit: India’s commitment to 500 GW of non-fossil installed capacity by 2030 under its updated NDCs makes hydropower indispensable for peak shaving and grid balancing as the share of variable renewables (solar + wind) grows.
• Geopolitical signalling: Advancing groundwork during abeyance demonstrates India’s willingness to exercise dormant treaty entitlements — including, potentially, the underused 3.6 MAF storage right — without seeking prior Pakistani concurrence.

Pakistan’s Vulnerability and Response Options

Pakistan is among the world’s most water-stressed countries, with per-capita water availability below the absolute scarcity threshold of 1,000 m³/year on some measures. Over 90% of Pakistan’s irrigated agriculture in Punjab and Sindh — the country’s breadbaskets — depends on the Indus system, with the Tarbela (on the Indus) and Mangla (on the Jhelum) reservoirs forming the spine of its storage.

Environmental and Geotechnical Concerns

• Sediment load: The Sutlej and Chenab carry among the highest sediment loads in the world; turbine erosion and reservoir desilting are recurring engineering challenges.
• Cryosphere change: The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) Assessment by ICIMOD projects significant glacial mass loss this century, altering seasonality and peak discharge — with implications for both firm power and downstream flood risk.
• Seismicity: Most Chenab-basin sites fall in Seismic Zones IV and V under IS 1893; dam safety reviews under the Dam Safety Act, 2021 assume heightened importance.
• Biodiversity and displacement: Submergence and tunnelling in narrow Himalayan valleys raise classical concerns of forest loss, fish-passage interruption (especially for Schizothorax species), and oustee rehabilitation.

UPSC Relevance

• GS Paper 2 — India and its neighbourhood (India-Pakistan relations); bilateral treaties and their suspension; international institutions (World Bank, PCA, ICJ); effect of policies and politics of other countries on India’s interests.
• GS Paper 3 — Infrastructure: energy; conservation, environmental pollution and degradation; water security and resource management; disaster management (dam safety, seismic risk).
• Essay / Ethics (GS4): Ethical dimension of weaponising shared natural resources in response to terrorism; balancing sovereign self-defence with humanitarian downstream impacts.

Sources: Ministry of Jal Shakti, PIB, MEA