New Delhi: A day after India announced suspension of Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan, which came as an aftermath of the deadly Pulwama terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir, Secretary of Pakistan’s Ministry of Water Resources Khawaja Shumail said “We have neither concern nor objection if India diverts water of eastern rivers and supplies it to its people or uses it for other purposes, as the IWT allows it do so.”

Shumail said Pakistan did not see Mr Gadkari’s tweet as worrisome in context with the IWT. “Actually India wants to construct Shahpurkandi dam at the Ravi basin. This project is abandoned since 1995. Now they (India) want to construct this in a bid to use its own share of water that goes unutilised and finally flows to Pakistan” he said.

“So if they want to use this whether through storing it through construction of this dam or any other way for their people, they can do as we have nothing to do with it,” he added.

“But we will definitely express our concerns and raise objections strongly if they use or divert waters of western rivers (Chenab, Indus, Jhelum) on which our right to use prevails,” he maintained.

Pakistan’s Commissioner for Indus Waters Syed Mehr Ali Shah said, as the IWT has already given a right to India in 1960 to use the water of eastern rivers it is now up to it to do so or not. “Whether they diverted and used their unutilised share of eastern rivers’ waters in 1960, we had no problem. They want to do it now, we have no problem. And if they don’t want to use this, we have no issue,” Mr Shah said.

“Planned Shahpurkandi dam was actually the stage-2 of the Ranjit Sagar dam. Though this project will also generate power, it will be used for irrigation purposes,” he added.