New Delhi: India has started work on three hydropower projects in Jammu and Kashmir, entailing a combined investment of around $3 billion, as the government looks to use excess water domestically for electricity generation instead of letting it flow into Pakistan.
The three projects—two on the Chenab river and one on the Jhelum - have a total capacity of 2.35 gigawatts (GW), enough to meet the peak power needs of about 2.5 million consumers, according to three people aware of the development.
The investment is part of the government's broader push to accelerate hydropower development in the region, against the backdrop of India placing the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) with Pakistan in abeyance following last year's terrorist attack in Kashmir's Pahalgam that left 26 people dead.
Construction on the second phase of state-run NHPC’s Dulhasti project (260 MW) on the Chenab river in Kishtwar district of Jammu & Kashmir started about two months ago. Work on NHPC’s Uri-I Stage 2 (240 MW) project started last month, they said. Also, India’s largest hydropower company NHPC has floated a tender for its long-stuck Sawalkot project (1,856 MW), and plans to shortly start work on the ambitious Dahi Nallah diversion project on a Chenab tributary to divert water flowing into Pakistan to Kishanganga project (330 MW) through a tunnel and generate addition 30 million units (MUs) of electricity annually.
Also, with the arrival of the southwest monsoon, India will carry out routine flushing at hydropower projects in Jammu and Kashmir on rivers that flow into Pakistan at least once a month to remove accumulated silt. This may lead to temporary increases in water flow and sediment levels downstream in Pakistan.
“The work on Dulhasti-2 (2 x 130 MW) started about two months back, and that on Uri stage-2 also began about 20 days back. NHPC has also released a tender for civil works of the Sawalkot project (1856 MW),” said the first of the three persons cited earlier, all speaking on condition of anonymity.
It is estimated that the average annual runoff - the total volume of water flowing through the river system - of the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab is 136 million acre feet (maf), of which 40% (around 54 maf) originates on the Indian side.
“There is a strategic need now to develop projects with storage capacity and tap the potential in Jammu and Kashmir and also across the country. The Dulhasti Stage II and Uri 1 Stage-II hydro projects may take up to 4 years for completion after the work has been awarded,” said Abhay Kumar Singh, president, Indian National Hydropower Association and former chairman and managing director of NHPC. He added that other under-construction projects in the Union territory are also gaining pace.
Queries emailed to the spokespersons of Union power ministry, chief secretary of Jammu & Kashmir and NHPC remained unanswered till press time.
The Indus Waters Treaty, a World Bank-brokered water-sharing pact between India and Pakistan signed in 1960, governs the use of the Indus river system, which originates in Tibet and flows through India into Pakistan. The treaty capped India's storage capacity on these rivers at 3.6 maf. However, amid objections from Pakistan and challenges in project completions, India could not develop enough infrastructure to reach the permitted 3.6 maf capacity. The government last year directed NHPC to develop new projects with higher storage capacity.
The Dulhasti Stage-II hydroelectric project is planned on the Chenab river in Kishtwar. The project is expected to generate an annual energy output of 803.33 MUs through an underground powerhouse (2x130 MW). Further the Uri-I Stage-II hydroelectric project is proposed on the Jhelum River in Baramulla, J&K. The project will generate an annual energy output of 932.60 MUs through an underground powerhouse.
In a related development, the 1,856 MW Sawalkot hydroelectric project on the Chenab river, for which the Jammu & Kashmir government was negotiating a stake and revenue share as reported by Mint earlier, would now be developed by NHPC, said the second person.
“Along with the water diversion plan, government has also asked NHPC to increase the storage capacity of Sawalkot from its current level of 500 million cubic meter. The Sawalkot project is in the tendering process. After the recent civil works tender was launched, NHPC will next come up with a tender for hydromechanical work followed by electromechanical works. Civil works should start after the tender is awarded,” said the second person.
NHPC estimates the Sawalkot project will require an investment of ₹22,700 crore, with the state-run major having already spent ₹973 crore on a detailed project report (DPR). The projected investment may be revised with the plans to divert water from the two tributaries of Chenab—Chandra and Bhadra—to Beas and Ravi rivers respectively, to better utilize the water for irrigation in the downstream states of Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Delhi.
“The project for the diversion of Dahi Nallah to the Kishanganga project is also expected to start soon. The work has been fast-tracked. Water would be diverted to the Kishanganga hydro project through a head race tunnel,” said the third person cited above.
“Dahi Nallah, mountain stream located in the Gurez Valley of Bandipora district, currently flows directly to the Kishanganga river and merges with Neelam river in Pakistan without any utilization for hydropower generation. Now, the plan is to divert the water which flows at 3-4 cubic meters per second through a tunnel to the Kishanganga hydroelectric project, which would then flow into the Wular Lake and also help generate power at the Lower Jhelum project, Uri-1 project, Uri-1 Stage-2 and Uri-2 projects before flowing downstream to Pakistan,” the third person added.