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The World Bank has no role to play beyond being the facilitator of the Indus Waters Treaty between India and Pakistan, Ajay Banga, the president of the international financial institution, said on Friday.
The World Bank president clarified that it will not intervene in the suspension imposed on the water-sharing agreement by India following the Pahalgam terrorist attack.
The Indus Waters Treaty was signed in 1960 after nine years of negotiations between the two neighbours with the help of the World Bank, which is also a signatory.
“We have no role to play beyond a facilitator. There’s a lot of speculation in the media about how the World Bank will step in and fix the problem, but it’s all bunk. The World Bank’s role is merely as a facilitator,” Banga was quoted as saying by the Press Information Bureau.
We have no role to play beyond a facilitator. There’s a lot of speculation in the media about how the World Bank will step in & fix the problem but it’s all bunk. The World Bank’s role is merely as a facilitator
-World Bank President, Ajay Banga on #IndusWaterTreaty Suspension… pic.twitter.com/6bbiZpKf0o
— PIB India (@PIB_India) May 9, 2025
A day after the horrific terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam that led to the loss of 26 lives, mostly tourists, the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 was kept in abeyance with immediate effect until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism.
Banga met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the national capital on Thursday evening, news agency ANI reported. Soon after, there were speculations that the World Bank would step into the matter.
Separately, on Thursday evening, India’s foreign secretary, Vikram Misri, highlighted that Pakistan had repeatedly violated the Indus Water Treaty by deliberately creating “legal roadblocks” over the years, adding that it was India’s patience that New Delhi was “adhering to the treaty for the last 65 years.”
Addressing a press briefing, Misri said India was constantly trying to negotiate to discuss the modification of the treaty. “For the last 2.5 years, India has been in communication with the government of Pakistan. We have sent several notices to them requesting negotiations to discuss the modification of the treaty. India has been honouring the treaty for more than six decades, even during the period when Pakistan imposed multiple wars on us. Pakistan has been the one acting in violation of the treaty, deliberately creating legal roadblocks in India, exercising its legitimate rights on the Western rivers… It is India’s patience that we were adhering to the treaty for the last 65 years, even after so many provocations,” Misri said, according to ANI.
Misri noted Pakistan’s constant “refusal to respond to our request” has been another factor to put the treaty in abeyance.The treaty allocates the Western Rivers (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab) to Pakistan and the Eastern Rivers (Ravi, Beas, Sutlej) to India. At the same time, it allows each country certain waters of the rivers allocated to the other. The treaty gives India 20 percent of the water from the Indus River System and the rest, 80 percent, to Pakistan.
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