“Excess water to Pakistan will be stopped. It has to be stopped. Kathua and Samba districts are drought-hit areas, and this project, which is our priority, is being constructed for the Kandi area,” the minister said.
With summers on the horizon, Pakistan’s water troubles may worsen as India is planning to halt the flow of surplus water from the Ravi to Pakistan. The suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty helped in accelerating work on the Shahpur Kandi dam on the Punjab-Jammu and Kashmir border, and the project is near completion, according to Jammu and Kashmir minister Javed Ahmed Rana.
The minister said that once the dam is operational, India will be able to block the flow of excess water from the Ravi River into Pakistan, marking a long-awaited shift in the use of eastern river waters of the Indus basin.
The work of the Shahpur Kandi dam is expected to be completed by March 31, and its water will be diverted to drought-prone Kathua and Samba districts, said Rana.
“Excess water to Pakistan will be stopped. It has to be stopped. Kathua and Samba districts are drought-hit areas, and this project, which is our priority, is being constructed for the Kandi area,” he told reporters.
About the Shahpur Kandi Dam Project
Currently, the Ravi River’s surplus waters flow through Madhopur into Pakistan, a downstream or lower riparian country. The dam will redirect this water to Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.
The Shahpur Kandi Dam Project was envisaged nearly five decades ago in 1979 to stop the Ravi water’s flow to Pakistan. The foundation stone for the project was laid by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1982. However, the construction was halted due to internal tussles between the Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir governments. In 2008, the project was declared a national project.
It is being constructed at a cost of Rs 3,394.49 crore, out of which Punjab is contributing Rs 2,694.02 crore (around 80 per cent), while the remaining Rs 700.45 crore (20 per cent) is being funded by the government of India. The dam stands 55.5 metres high and includes a 7.7 km-long hydel channel.
According to officials, the project will help in the irrigation of about 5,000 hectares in Punjab and more than 32,173 hectares across Kathua and Samba in Jammu and Kashmir.
Former irrigation minister Taj Mohideen said the Indus Waters Treaty does not govern the operation of the dam because India has exclusive rights over the Ravi.
Indus Waters Treaty
On April 23, 2025, a day after 26 civilians were killed in Pahalgam by Pakistan-linked terrorists, India formally placed the Indus Waters Treaty “in abeyance” and, for the first time since 1960, explicitly linked water cooperation to Pakistan’s continued use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy.
The move came alongside Operation Sindoor and marked a decisive shift in India’s Pakistan policy—cooperation cannot continue amid hostility.
Nearly 80-90 per cent of Pakistan’s agriculture depends on the Indus River system, as Islamabad’s water storage capacity barely covers a month of flow.
When the treaty was in force, Pakistan had rights over the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab rivers, and India over the Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej. With the treaty now in abeyance, the Centre is pushing ahead with several hydroelectric projects in the Indus basin, such as Sawalkote, Ratle, Bursar, Pakal Dul, Kwar, Kiru, and Kirthai I and II. Earlier this month, India decided to accelerate work on the Sawalkote project.
