Delhi, 5 states sign agreement for Kishau multi-purpose project; to augment drinking water supply for national capital

NewsIndia NewsDelhi, 5 states sign agreement for Kishau multi-purpose project; to augment drinking water supply for national capital Delhi, 5 states sign agreement for Kishau multi-purpose project; to augment drinking water supply for national capital Five states and Union Territory of Delhi signed an agreement on the long-pending Kishau Project NEW DELHI: Five states and Union Territory of Delhi on Tuesday signed an agreement on the long-pending Kishau Project, which is expected to regulate water availability in the wider Yamuna basin and increase flows downstream, benefitting the national capital and Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan in one way or another.

The water stored in the Kishau reservoir will augment drinking water supply for Delhi.The Kishau multi-purpose project is a proposed dam and hydropower project on the Tons river, a major tributary of the river Yamuna, flowing along the border of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Besides supplying drinking water, the multi-purpose project will also provide irrigation water for 97,000 hectares of land in riparian states and generate 1,476 million units of hydroelectric power.The agreement was signed here by all six chief ministers in the presence of Union home and cooperation minister Amit Shah, who said the Centre and the chief ministers of these six states/UTs of Yamuna basin are committed to complete the project at the earliest.Calling it a “historic agreement”, Shah said Delhi will be the biggest beneficiary of the project and it will also contribute to environmental conservation by ensuring environmental flow of river Yamuna.

Under the Kishau Multipurpose Project agreement, an around 232-metre-high concrete gravity dam will be constructed on Tons. It will have a water storage capacity of 1,562 million cubic metres.Shah said the Centre that declared the Kishau Multipurpose Project a “national project” will bear approximately 90% of its financial burden, while the remaining 10% will be borne by the participating states in accordance with the 1994 agreement.Shah, on the occasion, recalled the signing of several other agreements on water issues and said that the period from 2018 to 2026 will be remembered as a period in which almost all water disputes, from Kashmir to Uttar Pradesh, were resolved.

The foundation for these resolutions was laid in meetings of the Zonal Councils and the Ministry of Jal Shakti efficiently took these agreements forward, he added.Join conversation InsightfulAgreeDisagreeSkepticalConcerningPromisingWorth ReadingBig Development Citing examples, Shah recalled that first, in August 2018, the dispute over the Lakhwar Multipurpose Project was resolved.

In the same month, the dispute over Shahpur Kandi Dam Project was settled. In 2019, the dispute over Renukaji Multipurpose Dam Project in Upper Yamuna Basin was resolved. In 2021, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh reached an agreement on the Ken-Betwa Link Project, benefiting the water-stressed region of Bundelkhand, he added.The other projects in this league are the revised Parbati-Kalisindh-Chambal River Link project in 2024; the scheme for transferring water from Hathnikund to the Yamuna through an underground pipeline in Feb 2024; resolving dispute over the rehabilitation of families displaced by the Narmada Project in July 2026; and settling the dispute over water sharing between Bihar and Jharkhand in the river Son Basin in Aug 2026.

Get the latest India News and Live updates. Download the TOI app. Vishwa Mohan is Senior Editor at The Times of India. He writes on environment, climate change, agriculture, water resources and clean energy, tracking policy issues and climate diplomacy.

He has been covering Parliament since 2003 to see how politics shaped up domestic policy and India’s position at global platform. Before switching over to explore sustainable development issues, Vishwa had covered internal security and investigative agencies for more than a decade.

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