New Delhi/Islamabad, September 26, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
Pakistan’s repeated emphasis on the sanctity of the Indus Waters Treaty and warnings about its implications for water and food security are being used to shift attention from domestic water management challenges, according to an analysis by former Indian Commissioner for Indus Waters P.K. Saxena published by NatStrat.
Saxena argued that Pakistan’s water and food security challenges stem primarily from domestic governance, infrastructure and resource-management issues rather than upstream engineering projects in Jammu and Kashmir.
The analysis came amid renewed debate over the Indus Waters Treaty. The Permanent Court of Arbitration said in August that the treaty remained in force after India suspended it in April 2025, while India rejected the tribunal’s jurisdiction and said its pronouncements would have no effect on its sovereign decisions.
Saxena said Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar’s warnings that suspension of the treaty could threaten the water, food and national security of millions of Pakistanis reflected what he described as a longstanding political narrative.
He pointed to the treaty’s allocation of the Indus river system, arguing that Pakistan receives more than 80 per cent of the system’s total flow, while India’s allocation is around 33 million acre-feet.
Saxena also rejected the characterization of Indian run-of-the-river hydropower projects such as Kishenganga, Baglihar and Ratle as an existential threat to Pakistan’s water supply. He said such projects generate electricity from the river’s flow before releasing the water back into the river channel.
According to the analysis, water shortages faced by Pakistani farmers are also linked to the country’s Warabandi canal allocation system, which Saxena said can leave farmers at the tail end of canal networks with inadequate supplies.
The analysis argued that Pakistan’s water challenges should therefore also be examined through the lens of domestic distribution, conservation, infrastructure and institutional capacity.
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