India’s Water Minister C.R.Patil has said that the country is working to ensure that no water flows into Pakistan, in one of the most direct statements from New Delhi since it suspended the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in April 2025.
“It is certain, not a single drop of water will go (to Pakistan) in the coming years,” Water Minister C.R. Patil told ANI late Tuesday, adding that India is “actively working on it” after receiving directives from Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi.
The 1960 Indus Waters Treaty governs the use of six rivers whose headwaters originate in India but flow into Pakistan as part of the Indus basin, a resource that hundreds of millions depend on.
India suspended its membership in May 2025 after accusing Islamabad of backing a deadly attack on tourists in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), charges which Pakistan denied. The two countries then fought a four-day conflict involving drone, missile and artillery exchanges.
Experts, however, note that India’s existing dams do not have the capacity to block or divert water flows and can only regulate the timing of releases. Any infrastructure built to cut flows would take several years to have an impact. An official in IIOJK told media that new work could “not be possible to start before mid-2027” and would take at least five years to complete.
Pakistan has previously warned it would treat any attempt to alter cross-border water flows as an “act of war”, maintaining that the treaty remains in force since there is no mechanism for unilateral withdrawal.
Islamabad has also urged the United Nation (UN) Security Council to take up the dispute, cautioning that India’s suspension carries what it called “grave peace and security and humanitarian consequences” for South Asia.
