Himachal, Uttarakhand to iron out differences on Kishau Dam project

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News service

Shimla, May 14

The Himachal Pradesh Government has pinned its hopes on a meeting of senior officials from Uttarakhand scheduled to be held in Dehradun on May 16.

The two states will iron out differences and sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the execution of the 660 MW multipurpose Kishau Dam project as a joint venture at an estimated cost of Rs 10,500 crore.

The Himachal team led by Chief Secretary P Mitra, Principal Secretary (Power) SKBS Negi and Managing Director of HP Power Corporation Devinder Sharma would hold discussions with the Uttarakhand Chief Secretary and other officers to finalise the modalities for signing the MOU, which has already been delayed by more than two years.

The project has already been cleared as a national project with 90 per cent funding by the Centre, but the partner states have not been able to reach a consensus on sharing the benefits.

Earlier, a high-level meeting, in which chief secretaries and power secretaries of both states participated, was held in Shimla in December 2014 to finalise the terms of the MOU, but it made little progress and the Uttarakhand government asked Himachal to prepare the draft MOU.

“We have sent the draft MOU to Uttarakhand and further discussions for preparing the final draft will be held in the meeting,” SKBS Negi said.

The MOU would clearly spell out the basis on which the benefits from the project to be constructed on Tons river would be shared by the two states.

Since the capacity of the project has been increased from 600 mw to 660 mw, Himachal now wants its share in the increased capacity of the downstream projects in addition to 50 per cent share in the Kishau project, official sources said.

However, the Uttarakhand Government has some reservations on the proposal of Himachal Government and it has become a contentious issue.

The two states had been discussing the issue since December 2013, but in spite of Congress-led governments in both states, the issue has not been clinched.

The project envisaged the construction of a 680-m long and 236-m high concrete gravity dam 45 km upstream Dak Pathar at the fringe of the Ichari reservoir. The reservoir will extend upstream 44.5 km and 2,950 hectare area will be submerged in both states and nine villages in Uttarakhand and eight villages of Sirmaur in Himachal will be totally or partially submerged.

The dam will have a total storage capacity of 1,824 million cubic metre and the live storage will be 1,324 million cubic metre.

The project will generate 1,851 million units of power annually and the release of water from the dam during the lean season would augment generation in downstream power projects.

It was in 1940 that the project was first conceived and a preliminary project report was submitted to the Central Water and Power Commission.

Later, a detailed project report envisaging a 235-m-high arch dam was prepared in January 1965, but it was not approved because the proposed site fell in active seismic zone.