Centre, six states to ink an MoU for Lakhwar multi-purpose project tomorrow

The Centre and six states of North India will sign a memorandum of understanding tomorrow for construction of Lakhwar multi-purpose project in the Upper Yamuna basin in Uttarakhand, the Ministry of Water Resources said today.

Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari will sign an MoU with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Vasundhara Raje of Rajasthan, Trivendra Singh Rawat of Uttarakhand, Manohar Lal Khattar of Haryana, Arvind Kejriwal of Delhi, and Himachal Pradesh's Jai Ram Thakur in Delhi for the project worth Rs 3,966.51 crore.

The Lakhwar project envisages construction of a 204-metre-high concrete dam across the Yamuna near Lohari village in Dehradun district of Uttarakhand with a live storage capacity of 330.66 million cubic metre (MCM).

This storage will provide irrigation to 33,780 hectares land and availability of 78.83 MCM water for domestic, drinking and industrial use in the six basin states.

The project, which is to be executed by Uttarakhand Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited (UJVL), will generate 300 MW of power.

Out of the total project cost of Rs 3,966.51 crore, the power component of Rs 1,388.28 crore will be borne by the Uttarakhand government, which will get the benefit of the total power generation once the project is complete.

Out of the remaining Rs 2,578.23 crore, which forms the irrigation and drinking water components, 90 per cent will be borne by the Centre (Rs 2,320.41 crore), the statement said.

The rest 10 per cent will be divided between Haryana - Rs 123.29 crore (47.82 per cent), Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand Rs 86.75 crore (33.65 per cent), Rajasthan - Rs 24.08 crore (9.34 per cent), Delhi - Rs 15.58 crore (6.04 per cent) and Himachal Pradesh - Rs. 8.13 crore (3.15 per cent), the ministry said.

Storage created as a result of implementation of Lakhwar project will be shared by the basin states in proportion to their overall annual allocations as given in the mother MoU signed between the six states on May 12, 1994.

"Allocation of water from storage created by Lakhwar Dam Reservoir will be regulated by UYRB as per this MoU. Except the sharing of stored water, all other resultant economic benefits including generation of hydropower due to construction of the dam are assigned to the state of Uttarakhand," the statement added.

Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi are the six Upper Yamuna Basin states.

Upper Yamuna refers to the stretch of the Yamuna from its origin to the Okhla Barrage in Delhi.

The six states had signed an MoU on May 12, 1994, regarding allocation of surface flow of River Yamuna. The agreement had recognised the need to create storage facilities in Upper Yamuna Basin to conserve and utilise the monsoon flows of the river in a regulated manner.

The MoU had also laid down the interim seasonal allocation of the annual utilisable flow of the river pending creation of storage facilities.

MoUs for other major projects being envisaged in the Upper Yamuna reaches which are Kishau Multi-Purpose project and Renukaji Multi-Purpose project.

A fourth project is the Vyasi project, a run-of-the-river scheme under which a concrete dam across Yamuna river, is being constructed near Vyasi village in Dehradun district. The Vyasi project is scheduled for commissioning by December 2018.

The Kishau Multi-purpose project, which includes construction of a 236-metre-high concrete dam across Tons river, a tributary of Yamuna in Dehradun district with a live storage capacity of 1,324 MCM, will create irrigation potential of about 97,000 hectares, make available 517 MCM drinking water and generate 660 MW of power.

The Renukaji Multi-Purpose project, which has been conceived as a storage project on Giri river, another tributary of Yamuna, in Sirmour district of Himachal Pradesh, envisages construction of 148 metres high rock filled dam for supply of 23 cubic metre per second (cumec) water to Delhi and generate 40 MW of power during peak flow.

As per the MoU of 1994, separate agreements will have to be done between the six basin states for each water storage project in the upper reaches of the Yamuna.

After completion of all these storage projects in Upper Yamuna Basin (including Lakhwar), the total benefits in terms of additional irrigation potential created will be 1,30,856 hectares, water availability for various uses will be 1,093.83 MCM and power generation capacity will be 1,060 MW.

(This article has not been edited by Zeebiz editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)