Center To Expand Ranbir Canal On Chenab River In Favour Of India

The government plans to increase the length of the Ranbir canal on the Chenab River. This will be done to ensure that India will get to use as much water as possible.

"One of the major plans is enhancing the length of the Ranbir canal to 120 km," an official said, adding that as building of the infrastructure requires time, "all stakeholders have been urged to expedite the process".

Kathua, Ravi, and Paragwal canals are going through the process of desilting, the official said.

The Indus, Jhelum, and the Chenab are recognised as the western rivers. The Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej are the eastern rivers. The Indus is the main river, and the rest are its tributaries.

Apart from irrigation, India has not used a lot of water from the Chenab. According to a senior officer, since the treaty has been halted now, India can shift its focus to meeting the energy demands for the power generation sector.

On the rivers that were earlier being used by Pakistan, India now plans to amplify its current hydropower capacity of around 3000 megawatts, said another senior official. He further added that a feasibility study is planned.

This comes after India halted the Indus Water Treaty after the Pahalgam attack.

But India decided to suspend the treaty after the Pahalgam attack and has since then maintained that the treaty will remain suspended "until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism".