NEW DELHI: India is working to ensure “not a single drop of water” will flow into neighbouring Pakistan, the water minister has said, after New Delhi suspended a major treaty last year.
Pakistan has previously said it would consider any attempt to change the flow of cross-border waterways as an “act of war”, and says that the 1960 Indus Water Treaty (IWT) remains in force as there is no mechanism to unilaterally withdraw from it.
“It is certain, not a single drop of water will go (to Pakistan) in the coming years,” Minister of Water CR Patil told India’s ANI news agency late on Tuesday (Jun 9).
Patil, speaking in Hindi, said that India is “actively working on it” after “directives” from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The treaty governs the use of water from six rivers, whose headwaters originate in India but flow into Pakistan as part of the Indus basin – a resource relied on by hundreds of millions.
The Indus cuts through ultra-sensitive demarcation lines between India and Pakistan in contested, Muslim-majority Kashmir – a Himalayan territory both countries claim in full.
India said in May 2025 that it suspended its IWT membership, after accusing Islamabad of backing a deadly attack on tourists on the Indian side of Kashmir – charges Pakistan denied.
The nuclear-armed neighbours fought a four-day conflict – with intense drone, missile and artillery exchanges, killing nearly 70 people on both sides.
The issue of water has remained a bitter point of contention since.