26 August 2022 – The Indian Express

Trans Boundary Water Conflicts of India

Background:

• Given that it has about 4% of the world’s water resources, India ought to have had sufficient water supplies. But in 2011, India started to experience a water deficit.
• India is now ranked 120th out of 122 countries in the Water Quality Index, per NITI Aayog’s research.
• It uses more groundwater than China and the US combined (24% of the global total).
• India’s water demand is expected to rise from around 740 billion cubic metres to approximately 1.5 trillion cubic metres by 2030, according to UN predictions. (Estimated for 2010).
• The situation is significantly worsened by India’s water disputes with its neighbours and problems with interstate river water in India.

Water controversies with India’s neighbours:

• The issue of water continues to be divisive politically across the majority of South Asia. The rapid development the area is undergoing will only exacerbate the region’s already severe water shortage and agricultural problems.
• Excessive groundwater extraction is a significant problem given that there are over 23 million pumps in use in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan.
• Of addition, the groundwater in the Indo-Gangetic plain is more than 60% salinized and arsenic contaminated.
• Add these factors to the consequences of climate change, which are changing the Brahmaputra basin’s water supply and changing water flow patterns.
• In such circumstances, the increased demand for power and stable water levels may serve as a catalyst for the reform of bilateral water-sharing agreements in the future.

India and China’s Water Conflict:

• Both the Ganga and the Brahmaputra receive their water from Chinese glaciers. China is in a good position to block water from flowing downstream by building infrastructure because it is an upstream riparian area.
• Because of China’s tendency to hide information about its hydroelectric projects in the past, there is a lack of trust between the two neighbours.
• Despite having signed numerous MoUs to improve communication and strategic confidence, China’s aspirations to build dams and share water along the Brahmaputra cause conflict between the two neighbours (known as Yarlung Zangbo in China).
• Lower riparian countries like Bangladesh and India rely on the Brahmaputra’s water for agriculture.
• China will build four more dams on the Brahmaputra in Tibet. India and Bangladesh are both worried that Beijing could use these dams to divert or store water in the case of a political crisis.
• India, on the other hand, has built dams on the Teesta River, a tributary of the Brahmaputra, to utilise the flow during the dry season.

Water disputes between India and Bangladesh:

• India and Bangladesh share the Teesta River, which originates in the Himalayas and flows through Sikkim and West Bengal before joining the Brahmaputra in Assam and the Jamuna in Bangladesh. Perhaps the most contentious issue between the two friendly neighbours is this one.
• The river regulates the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, fills Sikkim’s floodplains almost entirely, and drains 2,800 square kilometres of Bangladesh.
• West Bengal also places great importance on the Teesta River, which is regarded as the lifeline of six North Bengali districts.
• Bangladesh has asked India for a “equitable” distribution of Teesta waters following the lines of the Ganga Water Treaty of 1996 in an effort to share surface waters at the Farakka Barrage close to their shared border.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2015 trip to Dhaka gave rise to optimism that the issues surrounding a fair and equitable water sharing agreement would be overcome.
• Teesta, however, is still a work in progress because transnational agreements in India are heavily influenced by the individual states. Making policies is occasionally made more challenging by this structure. For instance, one of the principal parties to the deal, West Bengal, has not yet given its consent.

Water Disputes Between India and Nepal:

• Agreements on water cooperation have been reached between Nepal and India regarding significant rivers like the Kosi, Gandaki, Karnali, or Mahakali. These agreements are often for sizable irrigation and hydropower projects requiring the building of dams or barrages.
• None of the projects, excluding the Kosi barrage, have been completed. Smaller rivers are also overlooked.
• Water rights issues have not been resolved since 1954, when India and Nepal signed the Kosi Agreement, when negotiations between the two nations ceased.
• There have been several arguments about this arrangement as a result of the flooding in the Kosi region.
• There have also been disputes between India and Nepal on the Kosi dam compensation issue.
• In addition, Nepal considered the construction to be an infringement on its territorial sovereignty.
• The Kosi River’s high level of sedimentation is a problem, and embankments have failed to slow it down.
• The only other option is to build storage tanks, which cannot be done without Nepal’s help.
• India and Nepal have historically had various interpretations of the Sugauli Treaty, which was signed in 1816 by the British East India Company and Nepal and established the boundary along the Maha Kali River in Nepal.
• The source of the river is different in India and Nepal depending on which stream it comes from.
• The conflict between India and Nepal, which at first glance looks insignificant, gains strategic significance due to the contested area’s proximity to the Sino-Indian border.

Conflicts over water between India and Pakistan:

• India and Pakistan have been at odds with one another over several water conflicts ever since the split.
• Early national leaders anticipated this bloody fight for control of the oceans dividing their volatile frontier.
• As a result, after lengthy negotiations and cautious bargaining, both countries signed the Indus Waters Treaty in 1960, which specified the precise split of the region’s rivers.
• This agreement gave Pakistan control over the Indus, Chenab, and Jhelum rivers in the west while granting India control over the Beas, Ravi, and Sutlej rivers in the east.
• The Indus Waters Treaty has been unanimously hailed as a triumph after three conflicts between the two hostile neighbours occurred after independence.
• Pakistan’s situation has significantly changed since the 1960s, and the nation is now in danger of running out of water.
• Since India is the source or conduit for all of Pakistan’s rivers, it only makes sense that India would have a greater impact on how these rivers flow out of Pakistan.
• The Indian government has more than 40 projects on the western rivers that are either complete or in the proposal stage. Pakistan has objected to the persistence of such activities in the western rivers.
• India, on the other hand, continues to deny that these accusations against Pakistan are true and are unsupported by science.
• Pakistan unsuccessfully argued before the World Bank in 2005 in opposition to India’s 450 MW Baglihar dam project on the Chenab river.
• The 330 MW Kishanganga project in Jammu and Kashmir was the subject of arguments from both countries in 2011 before the International Court of Arbitration (ICA).
• India’s construction of hydropower dams along the Chenab River is the subject of the most current dispute. Pakistan believes that these actions violate the convention and would have an impact on its water supply.

Water disputes between Bhutan and India:

• Hydroelectric power collaboration between India and Bhutan was established more than 50 years ago.
• Tala, Chukha, and Kurichu were just a few of the modest hydro projects that were developed as a result of the agreement.
• Bhutan has the ability to generate 30,000 MW of hydropower.
• In 2006, a 35-year Power Purchase Agreement was signed between the two countries, enabling India to produce and purchase 5000 MW of hydropower from Bhutan, with the capacity increasing to 10,000 MW in 2008.
• However, due of their possible long-term effects on the country, Bhutanese inhabitants opposed such projects.
• For instance, if Bhutan ever decides to build storage projects, issues with India could worsen and become more challenging.
• Bhutan’s internal issue is water access.

Way Forward:

• Water usage and sharing are routinely given less attention, combined with more serious border or security issues, or only addressed when natural disasters occur. However, the security and riches of a country are significantly impacted by water politics.
• Despite the fact that this transboundary issue is at the heart of their national development policies, the countries that have transboundary water sharing agreements need to undertake a deeper study and grasp of it.
• The difficult and uncompromising geopolitical situation among the other riparian countries, together with the complex orientation of the rivers in the South Asian subcontinent that cut through some of the region’s countries, underscore the critical role that water plays in the region.
• Through holding some critical discussions of these agreements, as well as by the active participation of regional organizations and mutual understanding among shareholders, these obstacles might be overcome in the context of experience.
• Hydrodiplomacy in South Asia may soon concentrate on less sensitive subjects like managing flooding by exchanging forecasting data and collaborating on navigation, electricity production, and water quality.
• If successful, formal international forums could eventually persuade governments to consider informal forms of cooperation, which (despite some limitations) could help them advance trust-building, settle conflicts, and manage shared waterways.