According to a study by researchers from the Stimson Centre, a US-based think tank, the Observer Research Foundation in India and Sustainable Development Policy Institute in Pakistan, ??water shortages could hit the subcontinent in a few years because growing populations and increasing development are placing rising pressure on the Indus Basin, to the point that water removals from the Indus are outpacing natural rates of renewal.??
India is facing a serious water resource problem and it is expected to become ?water stressed? by 2025 and ?water scarce? by 2050. Thus, it will have to balance its growing water needs and larger security concerns with effective ?hydro-diplomacy?’ In the last 50 years some 40 conflicts over water with weapons have been recorded.
As an active regional player, riparian issues for India will be crucial for settling many of the water-induced conflicts in the region.
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has said, ??Water holds the key to sustainable development. We need it for health, food security and economic progress. One-in-three people already lives in a country with moderate to high water stress, and by 2030, nearly half the global population could be facing water scarcity, with demand outstripping supply by 40%.??
The Ganges-Brahamaputra-Meghna (GBM) and the Indus basin account for two-thirds of India?s water potential. Further, any water outlook will necessitate interdisciplinary approaches linking together natural sciences, politics and policy.
The challenge for India will be to imbibe hydro-diplomacy in its overall regional diplomacy; not an easy task as India’s diplomacy has traditionally been bilateral rather than multilateral.
According to officials, ??Water has been a major issue in India-Bangladesh relations. Nearly 50 rivers flow from India into Bangladesh. Both sides signed the Ganges Water Treaty in 1996. While the treaty has helped them to arrive at a mutually acceptable solution on the sharing of the water of the Ganges; Bangladesh remains apprehensive about India’s intentions with regard to several other water-related issues such as the sharing of the Teesta river waters, India’s plans for the interlinking of the rivers and the construction of the Tipaimukh dam in the northeast.??
China has strengthened its political and economic control over Tibet, where India and China have a complex, unresolved boundary dispute. Thus, water has assumed higher priority in Sino-Indian relations in recent years. There are widespread fears in India that China?s diversion of waters of the Yarlung-Tsangpo, to meet high demand in its arid north, will cause hydrological imbalance in the northeast part of India and shortage in Bangladesh, which in turn will impact riparian relations.