Federal Minister for Climate Change and Environmental Coordination Musadik Malik accused India of using dams to disrupt the flow of the Indus River system reported Bloomberg on Tuesday.
“India is manipulating the flow of rivers that run into Pakistan by holding and releasing, holding and then flooding,” he was quoted as saying during an interview with Bloomberg.
The minister added how India lacks the storage capacity to completely stop the water, noting that when the water was needed for crop sowing, “it was not available” over the past month.
He also said their neighbour was doing this “to disturb crop patterns and the food security of Pakistan”.
Following the April 22 attack, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered officials to expedite planning and execution of projects on the Chenab, Jhelum and Indus rivers, three bodies of water in the Indus system that are designated primarily for Pakistan’s use, reported Reuters.
About 80% of Pakistani farms depend on the Indus system, as do nearly all hydropower projects serving the country of some 250 million.
Any efforts by Delhi to build dams, canals or other infrastructure that would withhold or divert significant amount of flow from the Indus system to India “would take years to realise,” said water security expert David Michel of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
There will be no compromise on water, says Bilawal
Meanwhile, in the interview, Malik added, “Because they don’t have storage dams, they have not been able to materially affect us.”
“If they start to build storage dams, it would be deemed as an act of war,” he said.
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