Centre, PM to take final call on stoping river water flow to Pakistan: Nitin Gadkari

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday said the decision to stop the flow of river water to Pakistan will be taken by the highest authorities of .

Reuters photo

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday said the decision to stop the flow of river water to Pakistan will be taken by authorities at the highest level.

“The decision to stop the flow of river water to Pakistan will be taken by the Centre at the level of Prime Minister. However, I have ordered my department to prepare a technical design as to how to stop the even legitimate water flow to Pakistan (Nirnay kewal mere dept ka nahi hai, sarkar aur PM ke level pe nirnay hoga par maine apne department se kaha hai ki Pakistan ka jo inke adhikar ka bhi paani ja raha tha vo kahan kahan rok sakte hain uska technical design bana ke taiyaari karo),” Gadkari said.

“If Pakistan will act like this and support terrorism, then what's the point of showing humanity to them (Agar isi tarah se vo bartav karenge aur aantankwaad ka samarthan karenge toh phir unke saath manavta ka vyvahaar karne ka kya matlab hai)” the minister further added.

Gadkari's comments come a day after he announced that India will stop the flow of its share of water from the three eastern rivers – the Beas, Ravi and Sutlej – to Pakistan.

"Under the leadership of (Prime Minister Narendra Modi), our government has decided to stop our share of water, which used to flow to Pakistan. We will divert water from eastern rivers and supply it to people in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab," Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari said in a tweet.

In another tweet, he said construction of a dam had started at Shahpur-Kandi on Ravi river. Moreover, the Ujh project will store India`s share of water for use in J&K and the rest will flow from the second Ravi-Beas Link to provide water to other basin states. All these projects have been declared as the national projects, he added.

Thursday`s announcement comes on top of actions like withdrawal of MFN status to Pakistan and slapping of a 200 per cent duty on all imports from Pakistan in the wake of the Pulwama suicide bombing that killed 40 CRPF troopers and which was claimed by the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).

With agency inputs