Amid intense diplomatic tension with Pakistan and the continued suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, India has built a dam on the Indus River in Ladakh. The dam has been constructed in the Upshi area near Leh, Ladakh’s largest town.
Indian media reported the news. The dam was built using large chunks of natural stone, with no cement used. Since its construction, the water level of the Indus River in the area has risen by about 10 feet.
Farmers in Ladakh have directly benefited from the dam. With the higher water level, many plots of land that could not previously be irrigated are now under cultivation.
Water scarcity for farming has long been a problem in Ladakh. Because the region has a series of gorges, the flow and level of the Indus River there remains lower than normal. The situation grows even harder in the dry season, when it is often impossible to draw water from the river even with pumps.
Because of this water shortage, thousands of bighas of farmland in Ladakh had remained unfit for cultivation for years. On top of that, India faced restrictions on using the river’s water because of the Indus Waters Treaty.
The new dam has made it possible to store about 40 million liters of water. That water has been channeled to dry farmland through the Igu Feh canal and other channels.
The India-Pakistan dispute over Indus waters
The dam’s construction in Ladakh comes at a time of intense dispute between India and Pakistan over Indus waters.
On Feb. 22, 2025, a terrorist attack occurred in the Baisaran Valley of Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag district. The Resistance Front (TRF), a branch of the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, carried out the attack, which killed 25 tourists.
In response to the attack, India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty, signed with Pakistan in 1960 under World Bank mediation. The treaty remains suspended.
Since then, over the past year, intense diplomatic tension over Indus waters has continued between India and Pakistan.
It is against this backdrop that the dam has been built on the Indian portion of the Indus River in Ladakh. It is the first dam built on the Indus River in that section.