Renuka dam gets forest clearance, to be ready by 2030   

The Centre has granted the much-awaited forest clearance to the Rs 6,947-crore Renuka multi-purpose dam, decades after it was conceived to address the water woes of the National Capital Region. Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of the project, which will come up on the Giri river at Dadahu in Sirmaur district of Himachal Pradesh, in December 2021.

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Confirming the stage-II final approval granted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change on June 4, Vasanth Kiran Babu, Conservator of Forests, Nahan, said: "The clearance will facilitate the diversion of 909 hectares of forest land for the construction of the dam."

While land acquisition has been completed, the dam authorities are in the process of finalising the technical details. The initial phase involves constructing three 1.5-km diversion tunnels to temporarily redirect the Giri, a tributary of the Yamuna, ensuring minimal disruption to its natural flow. This is critical to laying the foundation for the 148-m-high rock-fill dam, which is expected to be operational by 2030. 

As many as 41 villages and 7,000 people will be affected and 346 families will be rendered homeless by the construction of the dam. A total of 1,508 hectares of land, including 1,231 hectares of agricultural land spread across 32 villages, 909 hectares of reserved forestland and 49 hectares of the Renuka wildlife sanctuary, would be submerged in the Rs 6,947-crore project. A 24-km tunnel would be constructed for the project.

The project has a chequered history. It was earlier proposed as a 40 MW hydroelectric project in the 1960s. Its detailed project report (DPR) was formulated by the HP State Electricity Board in 1993 with the objective of partially meeting drinking water requirement of Delhi. The same was submitted to the Central Water Commission (CWC) on March 31, 1993, for according it the techno-economic clearance. 

After the DPR was cleared from the agencies concerned, it was in May 1994, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the utilisation and allocation of the waters of the upper Yamuna which included the Renuka storage dam.

The dam will be designed to supply a firm water supply of 23 cumecs to Delhi and act as a flood control measure during monsoon. The Centre declared it a national project on February 26,2009, fetching 90 per cent central funds towards the water component.

The project was earlier scheduled for completion by November 2014. Its construction was however stayed by the National Green Tribunal in 2010-11 due to objections to the environment clearance granted to it. The project cost shot up from Rs 3,572.19 crore to Rs 6,947 crore over the past several years. It was however given stage-I environmental clearance on February 20,2015, which was later extended.