Indus Waters Treaty divides the rivers of Punjab

Who: Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for India and President Mohammad Ayub Khan for Pakistan. The World Bank, then the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, signed through W. A. B. Iliff, but only for the purposes set out in Articles V and X and Annexures F, G and H.

What: The treaty was signed at Karachi on 19 September 1960 after almost a decade of negotiations. It took effect on 12 January 1961, when ratifications were exchanged at New Delhi, with effect from 1 April 1960. It divided the six rivers of the Indus system. All the waters of the Eastern Rivers, the Sutlej, Beas and Ravi, became available for the unrestricted use of India. Pakistan received the Western Rivers, the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab, with India limited to domestic and non-consumptive use, set amounts of irrigation and hydroelectric generation under fixed limits. The Eastern Rivers carry about 33 million acre-feet a year on average, and India's share of the whole system is commonly put at between 16 and 20 percent.

For a transition period of ten years from 1 April 1960, at most until 1973, India limited its withdrawals and made deliveries to Pakistan from the Eastern Rivers. India agreed to pay a fixed 62,060,000 pounds sterling in ten annual instalments towards replacement works in Pakistan, paid into a fund run by the World Bank. A Permanent Indus Commission with one commissioner from each country was created to handle information and disputes. The treaty ended the Inter-Dominion Agreement of 4 May 1948.

Where: Signed in Karachi. It touches both Punjabs, since irrigation canals in Pakistan had depended on the Eastern Rivers on 15 August 1947.

Why it mattered: The 1948 agreement shows that East Punjab was supplying water to canals in West Punjab and agreed to reduce the supply gradually. The treaty settled the dispute between the two countries by giving each its own rivers. What remained was how India divided the Eastern Rivers among its own states. Wikipedia's account of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal says that Punjab, PEPSU, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir had agreed on sharing these waters in 1955, and that after 1966 Haryana demanded part of Punjab's share. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism lists the distribution of river waters among the issues that still rankled after the 1966 reorganisation.

Under Article XII the treaty is modified or terminated by a ratified treaty between the two governments. On 23 April 2025, after the Pahalgam attack in Kashmir, India announced that it was suspending the treaty, and the World Bank said its role was limited to facilitation.