MPSC 2025 Prelims Paper-I · Question 94 of 100

Correct — option (3), 'Sutlej, Beas, Ravi'. The Indus Waters Treaty, signed by India and Pakistan on 19 September 1960 with the World Bank as a facilitating party, divides the six rivers of the Indus system into two groups. The three Eastern Rivers — the Sutlej, the Beas and the Ravi — were allocated for India's unrestricted use, meaning India may use their waters for irrigation, storage and power generation largely without the design and operating restrictions the treaty imposes elsewhere. The three Western Rivers — the Indus, the Jhelum and the Chenab — were allocated principally to Pakistan, with India retaining limited rights over them for domestic use, non-consumptive uses, and certain agricultural and run-of-the-river hydroelectric purposes, subject to detailed technical criteria set out in the treaty's annexures. Because the question asks specifically which rivers India uses under the treaty in the primary, unrestricted sense, the answer is the three Eastern Rivers — Sutlej, Beas and Ravi — matching option (3).

• (1)Sutlej, Indus, Ravi — Correctly includes two of the three Eastern Rivers, Sutlej and Ravi, but wrongly substitutes the Indus itself for the third Eastern River, Beas. The Indus is one of the three Western Rivers, allocated principally to Pakistan, with India holding only the treaty's limited, restricted rights over it — not the same unrestricted use it has over the Eastern Rivers.
• (2)Ravi, Jhelum, Indus — Names only one genuine Eastern River, Ravi, alongside two Western Rivers, Jhelum and Indus, both of which are allocated principally to Pakistan under the treaty, with India's rights over them limited and restricted rather than unrestricted.
• (4)Ravi, Chenab, Indus — Names only one genuine Eastern River, Ravi, alongside two Western Rivers, Chenab and Indus, both allocated principally to Pakistan. India's use of the Chenab and Indus under the treaty is limited to specific, restricted purposes, not the unrestricted use it enjoys over the Eastern Rivers.

The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 resolved the division of the six-river Indus basin system between India and Pakistan by splitting the rivers into two groups rather than sharing every river's flow. The three Eastern Rivers — Sutlej, Beas and Ravi — were given to India for essentially unrestricted use. The three Western Rivers — Indus, Jhelum and Chenab — were given principally to Pakistan, with India retaining carefully limited rights: for domestic and non-consumptive use, for agriculture within specified limits, and for generating hydroelectric power through run-of-the-river projects that must meet detailed design criteria set out in the treaty's technical annexures, precisely so that India cannot use its upstream position to materially alter the water's timing or quantity reaching Pakistan.

MPSC and UPSC both test the Eastern-versus-Western river split as the treaty's single most examinable fact, because it is precise, memorable and directly tied to present-day India-Pakistan relations — India's hydroelectric projects on the Chenab and Jhelum (such as Baglihar and Kishanganga) have repeatedly become points of dispute precisely because they sit on Western Rivers where India's rights are restricted rather than unrestricted. Holding the two groups of three rivers apart, rather than a single undifferentiated list of six, is the key to answering this family of question correctly.

• The Indus Waters Treaty was signed by India and Pakistan on 19 September 1960, with the World Bank as a facilitating and signatory party to the treaty framework.
• The three Eastern Rivers — Sutlej, Beas and Ravi — were allocated to India for essentially unrestricted use.
• The three Western Rivers — Indus, Jhelum and Chenab — were allocated principally to Pakistan, with India retaining limited rights for domestic use, non-consumptive use, specified agricultural use, and run-of-the-river hydroelectric generation.
• The treaty created a Permanent Indus Commission, with a commissioner from each country, to implement and manage differences arising under it.
• Indian hydroelectric projects on the Western Rivers, such as Baglihar (Chenab) and Kishanganga (Jhelum), have been recurring points of India-Pakistan dispute precisely because India's rights there are treaty-restricted rather than unrestricted.

• Treating all six rivers of the Indus system as a single undifferentiated list, rather than holding the Eastern-Western split as the treaty's core division
• Substituting one Western River for one Eastern River in an otherwise correct-looking list, since names like Indus and Chenab sound just as plausible as Sutlej and Beas to a candidate who has not fixed the exact grouping
• Assuming India has no rights at all over the Western Rivers, when in fact it retains specific, treaty-limited rights for domestic, agricultural and run-of-the-river hydroelectric use

MPSC and UPSC both like to test the Indus Waters Treaty by asking which rivers belong to which country's group, and the wrong options are built by swapping exactly one river between the Eastern and Western sets, since a plausible-sounding six-river name pool makes a partial substitution easy to miss. The defence is a fixed three-and-three mnemonic — Sutlej, Beas, Ravi to India; Indus, Jhelum, Chenab to Pakistan — held as two complete sets rather than six loose names.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, the three Western Rivers, allocated principally to Pakistan, are the Indus, the Chenab and which other river ?

  • (a)Sutlej
  • (b)Beas
  • (c)Jhelum
  • (d)Ravi

  Answer(c) Jhelum — the third Western River, alongside the Indus and the Chenab, allocated principally to Pakistan. Sutlej, Beas and Ravi are instead the three Eastern Rivers, allocated to India.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which international institution facilitated the negotiation of the Indus Waters Treaty and is a signatory party to the treaty framework ?

  • (a)United Nations
  • (b)International Monetary Fund
  • (c)World Bank
  • (d)Asian Development Bank

  Answer(c) World Bank — it mediated the negotiations between India and Pakistan from 1954 to 1960 and is a party to the treaty's framework, which was signed by the two countries and the Bank on 19 September 1960.