Long-pending Kishau Dam Project deal inked; Centre, six states sign MoU

New Delhi: A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the long-pending Kishau Project was signed on Tuesday between the Centre and six states — Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, bringing an end to a prolonged dispute over the sharing of the project’s financial burden and distribution of its benefits.

The agreement was reached at a meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, which was attended by the Chief Ministers of all six participating states — Uttarakhand’s Pushkar Singh Dhami, Himachal Pradesh’s Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, Haryana’s Nayab Singh Saini, Rajasthan’s Bhajanlal Sharma, Uttar Pradesh’s Yogi Adityanath and Delhi’s Rekha Gupta.

Union Minister for Jal Shakti C.R. Patil, Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan, Secretary of the Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, along with the Chief Secretaries of the participating states, were also present during the meeting.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma expressed his gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership for facilitating what he described as a historic agreement.

“The people of Rajasthan are very fortunate, because as you know, water scarcity has been a major challenge in Rajasthan. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, continuous agreements are being finalised — whether it is our ERCP, the Chambal-Kalisindh-Parbati link, the Yamuna water agreement with Haryana, the Narmada agreement among Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan, or today’s Kishau Dam agreement between Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Delhi,” CM Sharma said.

The Kishau Project had remained stuck for years due to differences over the financial responsibilities of the participating states, particularly Himachal Pradesh’s share in the cost of electricity generation.

Under an earlier agreement, Himachal Pradesh was expected to share the cost of power generation from the project with Uttarakhand, while the downstream states were to benefit from the water supplied through the project.

The previous BJP government in Himachal Pradesh had agreed to contribute Rs 800 crore as the state’s share towards the project. However, the present Congress government opposed the arrangement, citing the state’s limited financial resources and its inability to take on the additional financial burden.

The prolonged deadlock was eventually resolved in June this year following a high-level meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi.

Under the revised arrangement, 90 per cent of the cost of the water component of the project will be borne by the Centre as central assistance, ensuring that Himachal Pradesh does not take any financial burden for the construction of the water component.

As per the terms agreed upon by the participating states, Delhi, Rajasthan and Haryana will jointly bear the estimated Rs 2,000 crore cost of the power component on the Himachal Pradesh side. The revised financial arrangement has removed the major point of contention and paved the way for the signing of the MoU.

The Kishau Dam is proposed to be constructed on the Tons River, a tributary of the Yamuna, along the border of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Once completed, the project will be among the tallest dams in India and is expected to have significant benefits in terms of hydropower generation, irrigation and drinking water supply.

The project is located in Himachal Pradesh’s Sirmour district and envisages the construction of a 236-metre-high concrete dam. It is designed to generate hydropower while also creating irrigation potential covering around 97,000 hectares.

In addition to its power and irrigation benefits, the project is expected to supply 517 million cubic metres (MCM) of drinking water annually to the participating states. The total estimated cost of the Kishau Project is around Rs 15,000 crore.

The signing of the agreement is expected to provide a fresh impetus to the implementation of the long-pending project and strengthen cooperation among the six states and the Centre on water management, hydropower generation and the equitable distribution of the project’s benefits.

IANS