Union minister Nitin Gadkari has said the government is working on project to divert water from three rivers flowing into Pakistan from India in order to improve availability of water in the Yamuna, PTI reported.
He said both the countries hold the right to use water flowing in three rivers each under the Indus Waters Treaty signed in 1960. But India has not utilised river waters it is permitted to use under the agreement, he said.
“After formation of India and Pakistan, India and Pakistan got the right to use waters in three rivers each. The water from our three rivers is going to Pakistan. Now, we are planning to build a project and divert the water from these three rivers into Yamuna river. Once this happens, Yamuna will have more water,” news agency ANI quotes Nitin Gadkari as saying at a public event in Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat on Wednesday.
On Thursday evening, Gadkari took to Twitter to say that all the three projects have been declared as national projects. “Under the leadership of Hon’ble PM Sri @narendramodi ji, Our Govt. has decided to stop our share of water which used to flow to Pakistan. We will divert water from Eastern rivers and supply it to our people in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab,” the minister for water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation wrote on the microblogging site.