Precipitation is of great significance as far as global water cycle is concerned. Occurrence of hydrological extremes such as floods and droughts depends on the amount of precipitation. This when coupled with changing climate and topographic variability, makes management of water resources challenging especially in the high-lands. Vulnerability to the climate change, shown by the higher altitutde regions are more when compared to the lower elevation regions. Thus, for the efficient management of the available water and modelling of hydrological extremes, comprehension of variability of precipitation is of much importance. Therefore, the aim of the current study is to appraise the spatio-temporal variability of the drought characteristics in conjunction with the exploration of role of altitude in governing drought over the Indian drainage cover of the Indus river basin. Hence, gridded monthly precipitation data of 0.12° × 0.12° spatial resolution over a 42 year time scale (1979–2020) is utilized to study the annual and seasonal variations in precipitation. Significant precipitation trends in the region are identified by employing Sen’s slope method and Modified Mann–Kendall test. Results revealed that across different seasons, the precipitation trends in the basin area have very high heterogeneity. Overall, 14% of the grids shows increasing trends whereas, 9% of the grids exhibits decreasing trends. However, seasonally, pre-monsoon season shows that drying (decreasing) trends prevails in larger parts of the region (26%), while post-monsoon (12%) and monsoon (23%) seasons have larger area in the basin with wetting (increasing) trends. It is found that an elevation-dependent relation of precipitation exists. The altitude up-to around 2000 m elevation shows increasing (wetting) trends, however the rate of wetting decreases along the altitudinal gradient. Furthermore, decreasing (drying) trends are experienced between the altitudes around 2000–6000 m. Therefore, the findings of the study points towards the dryness (wetness) of the region at higher (lower) altitudes.