India’s Kishanganga Hydroelectric Project diverts water from the Kishanganga River to the Jhelum basin through a 24-kilometre tunnel.
Under the International Court of Arbitration’s 2013 Final Award, India is required to maintain a minimum downstream into the Neelum/Jhelum River.
India’s failure to maintain the required flow and its continued denial of critical hydrological data to Pakistan constitute a clear violation of its legal obligations under the Indus Waters Treaty and the International Court of Arbitration’s binding award.
The Kishanganga Hydroelectric Project, located on the Kishanganga River, a tributary of the Jhelum River, in Bandipora district of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, is a 330 MW run-of-the-river project, designed to divert water through a 24-kilometre tunnel to a power plant in the Jhelum basin.
Constructed at a cost of approximately $864 million, the project features a 37-meter-high concrete-face rock-filled dam and three 110 MW turbine generators.
India is legally bound by the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s December 2013 Final Award to maintain a minimum flow into the Neelum/Jhelum River.
Despite binding international legal obligations, India has failed to ensure the required flow and has denied critical hydrological data to Pakistan, constituting a serious breach of international legal and treaty commitments and international law, as well as posing a major water and environmental security threat to Pakistan.
By failing to maintain the court-mandated environmental flow and withholding critical hydrological data, India is undermining the rules-based framework of the Indus Waters Treaty, increasing uncertainty for downstream water management, agricultural planning, and economic stability in Pakistan.
India’s non-compliance with binding international obligations at Kishanganga represents more than a technical treaty dispute; it constitutes a direct challenge to transboundary water governance, with potentially severe consequences for Pakistan’s irrigation-dependent agriculture and rural livelihoods.
By disregarding the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s environmental flow requirements, India risks altering downstream river ecology and water availability, threatening agricultural productivity, food security, and socio-economic sustainability in Pakistan’s river-dependent regions.
India’s actions at Kishanganga reflect a troubling pattern of treaty non-compliance that erodes mutual trust, destabilises cooperative water management mechanisms, and exacerbates hydro-political tensions across the Indus Basin.
The failure to ensure mandated downstream flows and share operational data compromises predictability in Pakistan’s water system, undermining crop planning, increasing production risks, and imposing long-term costs on the national economy.
India’s withholding of critical hydrological data weakens transparency and accountability in a shared river basin, restricting Pakistan’s capacity to manage water resources effectively and exposing downstream communities to heightened agricultural and environmental risks.
By violating both the spirit and letter of its international obligations, India is transforming a cooperative water-sharing arrangement into a source of strategic uncertainty, with far-reaching implications for Pakistan’s agricultural output, food security, economic growth, and regional stability.
